Investigative MEDIA

Comments

  2. Reply to Bob Powers post on July 14, 2015 at 1:37 pm

    >> Bob Powers said…
    >>
    >> I think McKee is the Father and he was one of the 12.

    Yes. As Grant McKee’s father, he had the ‘standing’ to file his OWN ( separate ) ‘wrongful death’ action on the part of his son… and HE did so through attorney Patrick McGroder who was handling all 12 of those ‘enjoined’ cases in Federal Court.

    Marcia McKee, Grant’s mother, was the FIRST to file a ‘wrongful death’ action of her own way back when… but she did NOT use attorney Patrick McGroder. She used attorney Craig Knapp of the firm “Knapp and Roberts” in Phoenix, Arizona.

    >> Bob Powers also said…
    >>
    >> So he must not have signed.

    Joy just stated publicly down below ( with Grant McKee, Sr.’s permission ) that he has told her in-person that he has NOT signed any ‘settlement’ documents… and he has NO INTENTIONS of doing so… even though HIS ‘wrongful death’ action was one of the 12 ‘enjoined’ cases in Federal Court ( and not Maricopa County District Court ) all handled by attorney Patrick McGroder.

    ———————————————————————–
    On July 14, 2015 at 1:25 pm, Joy A. Collura said…

    I asked Grant Scott McKee due to discernment I would
    remain quiet and he said no need— I could publicly share
    Grant McKee who Sonny and I recently spent time with stated
    to hikers FIRST HAND he did not and was not signing

    I got first hand he had NOT signed any settlements.
    ———————————————————————–

    It’s unclear how that’s actually going to work, legally speaking.

    It would appear that unless Mr. McKee accepts the ‘settlement’ that was ( supposedly ) negotiated by attorney Patrick McGroder… then his ‘wrongful death’ case must then be de-coupled from the others who ARE deciding to ‘settle’… and then his valid ‘wrongful death’ suit can then proceed to trial.

    Negotiating settlements in cases that have been ‘enjoined’ is NOT a democracy.

    Just because a majority of the other ‘enjoined’ plaintiffs might want to make a deal with the defendants doesn’t mean that all the other plaintiffs have to just “go along with the majority”.

    Doesn’t work that way.

    What is astounding is that there was NO MENTION of this during the ‘dog and pony’ show over the ‘settlement’ that took place just two weeks ago.

    Everyone involved in that ‘dog and pony’ show ( attorney McGroder, Arizona State Attorney General Mark Brnovich, State Forester Jeff Whitney, etc., etc. ) made it sound like everything was a ‘done deal’ and that ALL of the 12 ‘plaintiffs’ were ‘onboard’ with the settlement.

    Apparently… not so much.

    The only three plaintiffs ( out of the 12 enjoined cases all being handled by McGroder ) that we seem to be able to be SURE have ‘accepted’ the ‘deal’ would be the three that were standing there at the ‘dog and pony’ show on June 29.

    That would be Juliann Ashcraft, Deborah Pfingston and Roxanne Warneke.

    Only Pfingston and Warneke actually spoke publicly and SAID they were ‘onboard’ with the deal being announced that day ( June 29, 2015 ).

    It can be ASSUMED that Juliann Aschcraft is, as well, but she did NOT take the opportunity to speak and to say so publicly.

    Heck… for all we know… ONLY these 3 plaintiffs are ‘accepting the deal’, and the ‘dog and pony’ was meant to blow smoke at the press and make them think that ALL of the 12 ‘enjoined’ plaintiffs were ‘onboard’ with the deal.

    Maybe nothing could be further from the truth.

    >> Bob Powers also asked…
    >>
    >> Do you know if the other 2 are part of the 12 or separate?

    If you mean the two ‘wrongful death’ cases that were ‘enjoined’ with Marcia McKee’s over in Maricopa County District Court ( on behalf of GM Hotshots John Percin, Jr. and Jesse Steed in addition to the one for Grant McKee )…

    …then all THREE of these ‘wrongful death’ cases are NOT part of the 12 that were being handled exclusively by attorney Patrick McGroder.

    They are SEPARATE CASES, and weren’t even part of the ‘mediation’ talks, as far as we know.

    Again… there was absolutely NO MENTION of these realities during that ‘dog and pony’ show on June 29… but back when all this ‘global mediation’ stuff was announced AZCENTRAL did a good job ( back then ) of making the distinction.

    AZCENTRAL
    Article Title: Yarnell hotshots’ death case going to mediation
    Published 9:10 p.m. MST January 16, 2015 – by Dennis Wagner
    http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2015/01/16/yarnell-hotshots-death-case-going-mediation/21901207/

    From the article…
    ——————————————————————–
    FIFTEEN (15) family members of hotshots have sued the Division of Forestry based on claims of negligence in overseeing the fire suppression effort.

    TWELVE (12) hotshot family members are plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit, and THREE (3) more filed their case in (Maricopa) County Superior Court.

    “The families believe this is an opportunity to discuss with the state options to resolve their cases in a way that hopefully reflects changes and transparency, and will ensure that a tragedy like this never happens again,” said Patrick McGroder III, an attorney for Juliann Ashcraft and the other ELEVEN (11) plaintiffs in the FEDERAL complaint.

    Attorney Craig Knapp, who represents the OTHER (3) hotshot family members in a parallel wrongful-death action in Maricopa County Superior Court, said he also asked that litigation be put on hold pending efforts to negotiate a settlement.

    Knapp said he’s prepared to go to trial, but willing to seek a resolution. “Our clients want change,” he added. “They want answers. They want to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else. And they want the state to take responsibility for what happened. Too many people died.”
    ——————————————————————–

    So there it is.

    AZCENTRAL reported that while attorney Craig Knapp ( representing Marcia McKee and family members for John Percin Jr. and Jesse Steed ) was fully aware of these ‘mediation’ efforts… he was NOT part of what attorney McGroder was doing with the cases over in FEDERAL court. That was just 12 of the 15 wrongful death lawsuits. The other THREE were ( and are STILL ) duly registered cases in Maricopa County District Court.

    Knapp seemed to say HE was also willing to put the Maricopa County cases ‘on hold’ for ‘talks’… those negotiations would be SEPARATE from whatever ‘deal’ McGroder was trying to work for the 12 clients HE represents.

    And now that the families involved in the other THREE wrongful death suits over in Maricopa County have seen what Arizona Forestry’s idea of a ‘settlement’ is over there in FEDERAL court… it’s pretty doubtful they will accept the same piss-poor deal.

    >> Bob Powers also said…
    >>
    >> McKee’s mother filed separate suit. in California?

    No. She filed her own separate ‘wrongful death’ suit on behalf of her son, Grant McKee, through attorney Craig Knapp of the firm “Knapp and Roberts” in Phoenix, Arizona.

    Her ‘wrongful death’ case ( and the other two for John Percin Jr. and Jesse Steed ) are all active in Arizona’s Maricopa County District Court.

    >> Bob Powers also said…
    >>
    >> We do not know what others have not Signed off on the agreement
    >> unless they release that or the news media gets ahold of it.

    Correct.

    As I said above… for all we know at this point… the ONLY plaintiffs of the 12 that were being handled by attorney Patrick McGroder over there in FEDERAL court that are actually WILLING to ‘accept’ this one-sided ( bogus ) settlement offer from Arizona Forestry would be the ones that bothered to show up at the ‘dog and pony’ show on June 29.

    Juliann Ashcraft, Deborah Pfingston and Roxanne Warneke.

    We’ve also now ‘heard’ from Grant McKee’s father… and he says in no uncertain terms he is NOT going to ‘sign any settlement agreement’ and is ready to “go to trial” and find out what really happened to his son and push for even more CLEAR ‘industry changes’.

    That still leaves ELEVEN ( 11 ) ‘wrongful death’ plaintiffs that need to be heard from as to whether or not they still want their own cases to go to trial.

    And remember… there only needs to be ONE case that remains active and proceeds to trial in order for anyone and everyone who had anything to do with the tragedy to be called to the witness stand and have to tell the WHOLE truth this time ( under penalty of perjury )… and not just the ‘part’ of the truth that fits their own personal agenda(s).

    Reply

  3. Reply to Joy A. Collura post on July 13, 2015 at 11:17 pm

    >> Joy Collura said…
    >>
    >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE2QkGLstF0
    >>
    >> here is the video Sonny where you almost blew off the Weavers; soft giggles.

    Joy… thank you for reposting a link to that particular video.

    I was wondering if you could verify something for me.

    For THIS video… you appear to be standing in the EXACT SAME SPOT as when you shot that now FAMOUS photo of the Granite Mountain Hotshots on Sunday morning with their backs to you and hiking AWAY from you and up that two-track towards where they were going to be working.

    The KEY is that rock formation to the left side of the two-track seen as you pan the camera to the right ( to the east ) in THIS video.

    It’s a large rock formation that looks like a stack of pancakes on a breakfast plate.

    That is the EXACT same rock formation as seen in your now-famous photo of the Granite Mountain Hotshots hiking in a line on Sunday morning… correct?

    Reply

    • To be specific… at exactly 18.5 seconds into this video is almost an identical shot as that now-famous photo you took of the Granite Mountain Hotshots hiking away from you on Sunday morning… but this frame at 18.5 seconds in the video now shows the AFTERMATH of what happened to that area where that famous GM-Hiking-Up-The-Ridge photo was taken.

      Correct?

      Reply

  4. **
    ** AT LEAST THREE YARNELL RELATED ‘WRONGFUL DEATH’
    ** LAWSUITS ARE STILL HEADED FOR TRIAL?

    As reported already by InvestigativeMEDIA… the recently announced ‘settlement’ of the 12-party enjoined ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits does NOT include the original ‘wrongful death’ lawsuit filed by Marcia McKee, the mother of deceased Granite Mountain Hotshot Grant McKee.

    Marcia McKee filed the FIRST ‘wrongful death’ lawsuit, but it was NOT through Prescott attorney Patrick McGroder. She used attorney Craig Knapp instead.

    The actual PUBLIC ‘Case Docket’ for that Marcia McKee lawsuit says it is still on its way to trial… with oral arguments in the case already scheduled.

    The last ‘entry’ in the case docket was back on May 19, 2015, but there is nothing to indicate that the case has been ‘settled’ or ‘dismissed’… so it remains an ‘active court docket’.

    Indeed… the case docket itself still says “There are NO JUDGEMENTS ON FILE”.

    The most recent entries actually just show that the ‘oral arguments’ regarding a standard ‘motion to dismiss’ ( filed by Arizona Forestry in an attempt to stop the case from proceeding to trial ) just keep getting ‘reset’ and ‘rescheduled’.

    NOTE: Arizona Forestry filed the same sort of ‘motions to dismiss’ in all the other cases they have been involved with. It’s always ‘worth a shot’ for them to attempt to do this. Arizona Forestry apparently first FILED this standard ‘Motion to Dismiss’ almost a YEAR ago, on August 29, 2014, but they still have yet to have ‘oral arguments’ with regards to this motion.

    This ( public ) online ‘case docket’ in Maricopa County Superior Court for Marcia McKee’s ongoing ‘wrongful death’ suit is at the following link…

    NOTE: This online docket shows events happening in the case and when documents were being filed in the case, and about what, but it does not contain links to the documents themselves.

    https://www.superiorcourt.maricopa.gov/docket/CivilCourtCases/caseInfo.asp?caseNumber=CV2014-009068

    Information showing ( as of today ) in the public case docket…
    —————————————————————–
    Case Number:CV2014-009068
    Judge: Gama, J. Richard
    File Date: 6/26/2014
    Location: Downtown
    Case Type: Civil

    Judgments – There are no judgments on file

    Party Information
    Party Name, Relationship, Sex, Attorney
    —————————————————–
    Kylie Steinmetz, Plaintiff, Male, Craig Knapp
    Desirre McCarthy, Plaintiff, Female, Craig Knapp
    State Of Arizona, Defendant, ?, Brock Heathcotte
    Arizona State Forestry Division, Defendant, ?, Brock Heathcotte
    Marcia McKee, Consolidated, Female, Craig Knapp
    Herman O Federwisch, Consolidated, Male, Craig Knapp
    Michael Parrish, Endorsement Case, Male, MICHAEL PARRISH
    ———————————————————

    Case Documents
    ——————————————————–
    Filing Date, Description, Docket Date, Filing Party

    5/19/2015, 095 – ME: Oral Argument Reset, 5/19/2015
    1/16/2015, 095 – ME: Oral Argument Reset, 1/16/2015
    1/15/2015, ORD – Order, 1/21/2015
    NOTE: VACATING THE ORAL ARGUMENT ON THE PENDING MOTIONS TO DISMISS IN THE CONSOLIDATED STEINMETZ FEDERWISCH AND MCKEE CASES
    1/5/2015, STP – Stipulation, 1/6/2015
    NOTE: STIPULATION TO VACATE AND RESCHEDULE ORAL ARGUMENT ON PENDING MOTIONS TO DISMISS
    12/3/2014, 053 – ME: Case Consolidation, 12/3/2014
    12/3/2014, 311 – ME: 150 Day Minute Entry, 12/3/2014
    11/26/2014, 339 – ME: 100 Day Notice, 11/26/2014
    10/31/2014, REL – Reply, 11/4/2014
    NOTE: REPLY IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO DISMISS
    10/21/2014, NOT – Notice, 10/21/2014
    NOTE: Rule 7.1(g)Notice of Second Extension of Time to File Memoranda
    10/6/2014, MEM – Memorandum, 10/7/2014
    NOTE: JOINT RULE 16.3(a) MEMORANDUM
    9/29/2014, RES – Response, 9/30/2014
    NOTE: Response to Motion to Dismiss
    9/15/2014, RES – Response, 9/16/2014
    NOTE: RESPONSE BY THE STEINMETZ, FEDERWISCH, AND McKEE PLAINTIFFS TO THE MOTION TO CONSOLIDATE FOUR CASES: CV 2014-009068, CV 2014-009069, CV 2014-009070, AND CV 2014-009160, PURSUANT TO RULE 42(a), ARCP
    8/29/2014, MTD – Motion To Dismiss, 8/29/2014
    NOTE: Motion to Dismiss
    8/29/2014, MCD – Motion To Consolidate, 9/2/2014
    NOTE: MOTION TO CONSOLIDATE FOUR CASES: CV2014-009068, CV2014-009069, CV2014-009070, AND CV2014-009160, PURSUANT TO RULE 42(a), ARCP
    ———————————————————

    ** THREE GM HOTSHOTS ARE STILL REPRESENTED

    There are actually THREE ‘plaintiffs’ who are part of this remaining ‘wrongful death’ action.

    Notice above the referenced to CONSOLIDATION around September 15, 2014.

    At least THREE of the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits WERE ‘consolidated’ into this one Maricopa County court case.

    There are THREE ‘plaintiffs’ remaining…

    Plaintiff McKee on behalf of GM Hotshot Grant McKee
    Plaintiff Steinmetz on behalf of GM Hotshot John Percin, Jr.
    Plaintiff Federwisch on behalf of GM Hotshot Jesse Steed.

    So ( apparently ) family members for GM Hotshots Grante McKee, John Percin Jr., and Jesse Steed have NOT made any kind of settlement agreement with Arizona Forestry and those cases are still ( apparently ) proceeding to TRIAL.

    There also still has been no POSITIVE CONFIRMATION that ALL 12 of the ‘plaintiffs’ in the OTHER ‘Patrick McGroder’ suits that ( supposedly ) just got ‘settled’ have actually ALL AGREED to the terms of the settlement.

    The only two family members we actually heard from during the press conference were Deborah Pfingston and Roxanne Warneke, nor has anyone see the actual ‘signatures’ of ALL 12 of the ‘plaintiffs’ showing that they ‘accept’ the proposed settlement.

    It is still possible that one ( or more ) of the 12 ‘enjoined’ plaintiffs will NOT accept the terms of the settlement… and then those case get ‘de-coupled’ from the group agreement and proceed to trial on their own.

    And all it takes is just ONE case proceeding to trial in order for anyone and everyone who had anything to do with this tragedy being called as a ‘witness’ and having to SWEAR ( under penalty of perjury now ) to tell the TRUTH, and ( most importantly ) the WHOLE TRUTH… and NOT just the part that fits your own agenda.

    More about all these ( still pending? ) wrongful death suits later.

    Reply

    • I asked Grant Scott McKee due to discernment I would remain quiet and he said no need— I could publicly share Grant McKee who Sonny and I recently spent time with stated to hikers FIRST HAND he did not and was not signing so Grant McKee asked Joy what information would it take for Joy to find closure in all this and I said recently local Brent Yadon asked that and now that I know he has not signed—publicly speaking to John Dougherty, Bill Gabbert and Morgan Loew to make sure it hits media platform that what happen in the news last week is not reality….I got first hand he had not signed any settlements. I also told him there cannot be a day until this fire is properly assessed and the proper people SPEAK UP…than and only than can I have closure.

      Reply

    • I think McKee is the Father and he was one of the 12. So he must not have signed.
      Do you know if the other 2 are part of the 12 or separate?
      McKee’s mother filed separate suit. in California?
      We do not know what others have not Signed off on the agreement unless they release that or the news media gets ahold of it.

      Reply

  5. Saw this news item the other day and thought it just put the Settlement into perspective with regards the payouts and fines;

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2015/07/07/time-warner-robocalls/29846041/

    It makes an absolute mockery of the whole fines and victim awards for YHF!

    There should not be a comparison here, but the amount awarded for being harassed by automated calls is staggering when you compare it to the fines where people actually died.

    Reply

    • Thank you Otis. I think your comment and the corresponding link sums up what I have been trying to say lately very nicely. And you are right of course, there shouldn’t be a comparison between the two situations but unfortunately there is one.

      Reply

    • Thank you, Otis.

      It seems the REAL ‘equivalent’ here would be if this person stated publicly they had no intentions of getting the ‘automated calling’ company to ever admit they were doing anything wrong… and they ended up settling the suit ( for a fraction of what was being demanded ) just based on some VERBAL ‘promises’ from the company that they would ‘take a look at current policy and practices’ and ‘see where we can make some changes’.

      People don’t like lawsuits… but the way we have structured our society and our organizations… sometimes it’s the ONLY thing that can FORCE CHANGE upon people ( and organizations ) that DO NOT WANT TO CHANGE.

      You have to hit ’em where it hurts… right smack in the WALLET.

      Sad, but true.

      Reply

      • WWTKTT said:
        People don’t like lawsuits… but the way we have structured our society and our organizations… sometimes it’s the ONLY thing that can FORCE CHANGE upon people ( and organizations ) that DO NOT WANT TO CHANGE.

        reply:
        I can say some of the loved ones of the GMHS feel this IS THE ONLY reason for their suits—- THEY WANT CHANGE!

        Reply

      • WWTKTT said:
        People don’t like lawsuits.

        Actually…that statement should read, MOST people don’t like lawsuits. That is just one of the nice things about being off the reservation with no intention to ever go back!

        FYI…Retirement funds can’t be taken by anyone except the IRS, and I don’t have anything except those. So…I really enjoy telling attorneys to kiss my ass, in fact, I have made a retirement hobby of doing just that.

        Reply

  7. Oh…and one more thing. I guess his federal retirement isn’t enough to enable Mr. Jeff Whitney to finish his otherwise stellar and honorable career with his head held high? A mighty Coconino hotshot alum needs the 30 pieces of silver (check it…a Biblical reference) the state of Arizona is paying him to sign off on screwing the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew Families?

    I know the state of Arizona isn’t paying more than that, it just isn’t in their nature. Somebody has to sign off on that disgrace of a settlement, but does it have to be a former Coconino hotshot?

    All of us have our price, and now wildland firefighting history will record exactly how much Arizona State Forester Jeff Whitney’s is…right?

    Wait, is this too harsh?

    Reply

    • I think you, yourself, suspect it may be too harsh.

      He had no involvement in the hiring and training and evaluation and business plan processes at PFD that were direct contributing factors, imo, to what occurred. Nor, directly, did his current employer.

      This to me is similar to a business executive joining a construction firm that’s embroiled in litigation but that didn’t necessarily directly cause the construction accident that led to the litigation.

      Reply

      • Well actually…my “is this too harsh” comment was just another manifestation of my quirky, flippant, immature attempt at humor mixed with my persistently sarcastic personality that is without a doubt a sign of deep seated anger that a psychiatrist could have a field day with if they were so inclined.

        And I suspect your opinion is one that is popular within the wildland firefighting community as a whole because Jeff Whitney is a without a doubt a highly respected, popular and even legendary figure from that community.

        But I don’t share in that opinion. In fact, I think Arizona State Forester Jeff Whitney should resign in protest rather than oversee the implementation of such a shameful disgrace masquerading as a settlement agreement on behalf of a shameful disgrace of a governor who is masquerading as a leader.

        A governor who shamelessly panders to the lowest common denominator in the Republican Party in the Great State of Arizona by being a climate change denier. A wildland firefighter who supports climate change deniers. Really?

        And I do understand all too well how the actual implementation of retirement plans can change a person. For example, a divorce can reduce assets by half or more (I don’t have the slightest idea what Mr. Whitney’s marital status is), which is just one more reason I work so hard at keeping my dear wife happy as often as my habitually difficult personality will allow.

        In addition, I do know for a fact one thing that has been hard on Mr. Whitney since he retired as one of the greatest fire gods who ever laced up a pair of White’s, he has had a hard time adjusting to becoming invisible. Which is one thing that happens to every retired person just as soon as they truthfully answer the inevitable question, “What do you do?”

        And I understand this phenomenon even though I wasn’t even close to being one of the greatest fire gods who ever laced up a pair of White’s when I retired. I always answer that question with a straight face by saying I am writing a book and running travel and off road web sites even though everything I have done in retirement to date has been a loss leader without any subsequent pay off. But at least I don’t say…”nothing, I don’t do a damn thing.”

        And even though I understand these things, I would still resign rather than sign off on that insult to the still grieving families. And I specifically speaking about the families who didn’t sue. Offer them nothing except your deepest condolences, but don’t offer them $10,000 in lieu of the $25,000 awarded to them by ADOSH. And like I said before, if someone offered me an insult to compensate me for the horrible death at their hands of one of my children, it would get really ugly in the room, really fast. Not physical of course…just really ugly.

        Please let me make one thing perfectly clear to everyone who has not been keeping up with current events. And I want to preface my pronouncement with this statement. There is no doubt in my mind that I know every causal factor on the Yarnell Hill Fire that resulted in the deaths of 19 GMIHC hotshots, in addition, I also understand the complicated nuances of all of the contributing factors in their deaths as well.

        The Arizona Division of Forestry is responsible for the deaths of 19 wildland firefighters on the Yarnell Hill Fire as a direct result of their gross negligence and incompetent management of said wildfire…period, end of story.

        Someone asked me in an email if I was going to name the last chapter of my book (Betrayed By Our Fire Gods) “Thirty Pieces of Silver.” And if Mr. Whitney signs off on that agreement as we currently understand it exists, the answer to that question is a resounding…hell yes! That name fits in with the whole betrayed theme…wouldn’t you agree?

        Reply

  8. This has been stuck in moderation for some time, so I am reposting it to see what happens..

    This comment fits into at least 2 categories. Clutter…and you can’t make this stuff up.

    When I first heard the name of the new Arizona Stage Forester…Jeff Whitney, I said to myself…I think I know that name from the old days. I am pretty sure there were two Whitney brothers who worked at the Blue Ridge Ranger District for the US Forest Service in the generation right before mine.

    They were both very tall and lanky with big mustaches and kind of looked like twins. They were both on the Blue Ridge Hotshots and fit into the category of college students studying to become professional foresters at NAU rather than terminal blue collar workers.

    By the time I was on the Happy Jack Hotshots next door to Blue Ridge, they had moved on to run engine crews as foremen. I know I kept hearing the name Whitney over the years in fire management, so one or both of them went on to become high ranking fire managers and an , as professional foresters as they moved up through the ranks. I am sure this is the same guy (Jeff Whitney) and he would have been retired from the USFS or whichever federal agency he worked for after them by now and be in a good position to be appointed as a political hack, State Foresters are always political hacks and change whenever there is a new governor, or there is a big screw up as the fall guy for the governor.

    So a former Blue Ridge Hotshot being in charge of screwing the families over would be classic karma…right?

    Reply

    • Yep. Whitney has “entered from stage left” and is now part of this shakespearean level tragedy. He’s already earned billing as the one who helped get some of the litigation to just “go away”… but will he go on to be the one, in the third act, doesn’t live up to ANY of the promises he made.

      We shall see.

      Attorney Patrick McGrocer really has made it sound like all these “promises” Whitney made which then caused the families to “cave” during the settlement negotiations were PERSONAL promises on Whitney’s part.

      So if Whitney just quits or gets thrown under his own personal bus… what happens to all these crucial “promises”?

      Reply

      • There is STILL, apparently, no PUBLIC copy of the actual settlement agreement between Arizona Forestry and the families of the dead Hotshots… and STILL no explanation as to why that wasn’t made available with the other ‘settlement’ documents… or when a copy of this other crucial document will be made available.

        So we still don’t know how much/many of these “promises” that both attorney Patrick McGroder and Jeff Whitney went on and on about in the settlement press conference.are actually CODIFIED in the legally binding ‘settlement document’ itself… or whether they just remain mostly VERBAL promises on the part of Jeff Whitney.

        Reply

  9. FYI – Even if the lawsuit was still ongoing, and proceeded all the way into a courtroom, the Prescott FD — with all their misdeeds/misrepresentations that are at the very core of why 19 people wound up dead with being immune in the end to any accountability as the PFD was excluded from litigation. No trial, no settlements, no bothering with empty assurances of reforms. They got to skate away clean.

    Reply

    • They could (all) still be called as witnesses in any court case… and that might contribute to solving some/all of the ongoing questions/mysteries.

      There are obviouy a lot of people involved with this incident who are never going to ‘do the right thing’ until they are FORCED to do so. I hope at least one court proceeding stays active so that can happen.

      Reply

  10. In case someone thinks I bailed here, I did tomorrow till Monday Ill be on vacation to Northern Idaho
    Camping and relaxing so will be back to catch up Monday evening.

    Reply

    • Enjoy the escape Bob, just make sure your campfire is out… Here in BC we have a province wide campfire ban

      Reply

      • Preaching to the quire HAHAHA–
        Actually will be in Post Falls on Saturday to watch our son race in the K&N NASCAR West at Stateline. 1/4 mile track. Then over to Mazola Smoke jumper base and down thru Salmon 2 days going 2 days coming home with the Camp Trailer.

        Reply

  11. This comment fits into 2 categories. Clutter…and you can’t make this stuff up.

    When I first heard the name of the new Arizona Stage Forester…Jeff Whitney, I said to myself…I think I know that name from the old days. I am pretty sure there were two Whitney brothers who worked at the Blue Ridge Ranger District for the US Forest Service in the generation right before mine.

    They were both very tall with big mustaches and kind of looked like twins. They were both on the Blue Ridge Hotshots and fit into the category of college students studying to become professional foresters at NAU rather than terminal blue collar workers.

    By the time I was on the Happy Jack Hotshots next door to Blue Ridge, they had moved on to run engine crews as foremen. I know I kept hearing the name Whitney over the years in fire management, so one or both of them went on to become high ranking fire managers as professional foresters as they moved up through the ranks. If it is the same guy, he would have been retired from the USFS or whichever federal agency he worked for after them by now and be in a good position to be appointed as a political hack, State Forester are always political hacks and change whenever there is a new governor, or there is a big screw up as the fall guy for the governor.

    So a former Blue Ridge Hotshot being in charge of screwing the families over would be classic karma…right?

    Reply

  12. Reply to Bob Powers post on July 7, 2015 at 3:10 pm

    >> Bob Powers wrote…
    >>
    >> WTKTT–Thanks for jumping in over on Wild Fire Today.
    >> They have added even more statements that are not found any where and
    >> keep changing the story… and who said what and what was said and who herd it.
    >> anyway take a look if you feel up to the Challenge.

    I posted a ‘Reply’ to user ‘FFSafety’ pointing out how wrong he was about where the fire actually was circa 4:30 PM… and that even the SAIT’s own firelines prove he is wildly mistaken.

    But some weirdness going on over there at Gabbert’s Blog.

    I posted the response at 9:30 PM. It stayed in ‘moderation’ for a few hours and then was suddenly ( and fully ) DELETED at exactly 11:15 PM. I figured I had once again hit that mysterious ‘Gabbert wall’ whereby it’s almost impossible to figure out what sort of comments he will ( or won’t ) allow.

    An hour or so went by… and a few more posts from other people appeared on other threads.

    Then my original post that had ‘vanished’ at 11:15 suddenly ‘reappeared’ and it was now no longer ‘in moderation’.

    So go figure.

    I’m think my ‘batting average’ over there for posts even making it out of ‘moderation’ is less than 50 percent at this point… and it’s always hard to tell what ‘criteria’ he uses for ‘valid comments’.

    Anyway… just in case he changes his minds and trashes my entire comment again… here is what was posted over there as a reply to ‘FFSafety’…

    ( My original Reply to ‘FFSavety posted as the next Reply here… )

    Reply

    • Reply to FFSafety post on July 7, 2015 at 12:35 pm

      >> FFSafety said…
      >>
      >> Bob they announced that they were going “SOUTH” – on the trail
      >> that was “MID-SLOPE.” That’s the trail that we can see in the pictures.
      >> And Musser and Cordes and other ppl testified that they heard GM
      >> say they were moving on their predetermined escape route down to
      >> their bomb-proof safety zone from that “morning.”
      >> Lord-a-lord, Bob – hows much more specific did you want them to be?

      In his one-and-only ADOSH interview, OPS2 Paul Musser DOES mention hearing something along those lines… but unlike what your statement above suggests… Musser specifically told ADOSH he heard absolutely NO mention of any ‘escape route’ and/or ‘safety zone’. He was sure about that.

      Musser told ADOSH that when HE spoke directly with Marsh ( at exactly 3:42 PM ) and Musser was checking on Granite Mountain’s ‘availability’ for additional assignments closer to Yarnell itself… the only response he got was that GM was still “committed to the ridge” and Musser told ADOSH that Marsh never talked of an escape route or safety zones during THAT conversation, either.

      Musser also told ADOSH that whatever might have been said over the radio ( in some other conversation he was not a part of ) about a ‘predetermined route’… he ( Musser ) had no frickin’ idea WHAT that meant.

      No one was talking to HIM about it… and Musser told ADOSH that he could only assume whoever they WERE mentioning that to over the radio understood what they meant… and Musser then never lifted a finger to find OUT what it meant.

      Paul Musser didn’t even have any idea who the ‘someone’ is that Marsh was talking to and also made no attempt to find that out, either.

      From OPS2 Paul Musser’s ADOSH interview…
      Starting with line 2542 of the interview…
      ———————————————————————
      Q = Brett Steurer, ADOSH investigator
      Q2 = Barry Hicks, ADOSH investigator
      A = OPS2 Paul Musser
      ———————————————————————-
      Q2: Oh. Uh, anything else you can think of that we probably need to know at this point and time? Uh…
      A: Uh, at one point I did hear Granite Mountain say they were using their predetermined route towards the structures.
      Q2: Oh, you did hear that?
      A: I did – I overheard that. Uh, I don’t know whether that was Granite talking to Eric or who they were – I did – I overheard that part of a conversation.
      Q2: Between Granite and somebody?
      A: Yes.
      Q2: Uh, but you don’t know who they were actually talking or…
      A: No. I do not… But there was no urgency, no – never talked of an escape route or safety zones or anything like that. It was just – or…
      Q2: And how did they say it? They…
      A: I think they said we’re going down our predetermined route towards the structures, I think is what was said.
      Q: Is that predetermined route something they might have marked with flags or…
      A: Uh, obviously whoever – who they were talking to knew what that meant.
      ———————————————————————

      So I believe your question was…

      “How much more specific did you want them to be?”

      How about specific enough that OPS2 Paul Musser ( and others ) wouldn’t have later testified to ADOSH that he/they had no frickin’ idea what Marsh was talking about?

      So regardless of what was SAID…
      OPS2 Musser had no idea what Marsh really MEANT… and he also never bothered to find out.

      Likewise…

      * OPS1 Todd Abel, on the north side, had no idea what Marsh really meant.
      * None of the Blue Ridge Hotshots had any idea what Marsh really meant.
      * TLFD(t) Trainee Tyson Esquibel had no idea what Marsh really meant.

      The evidence record suggests that the ONLY person in Yarnell who DID have ANY idea what all that “predetermined this morning” stuff meant was the man who “predetermined” it… and made that ‘Safety Zone’ assignment to Marsh that morning.

      That was SPGS1 Gary Cordes.

      Cordes is still the only person on the Yarnell IMT who admits to never having any doubts where Granite Mountain was going. Cordes might have had no idea they would be so foolish as to NOT stay on that two-track and attempt a shorcut through a blind box canyon filled with explosive fuel… but Cordes was SURE they were headed to the Boulder Springs Ranch.

      Unfortunately… Cordes’ own Situational Awareness (SA) was so bad that afternoon that even he had no idea what the fire was ACTUALLY doing out in that ‘middle bowl’ and so he was under the FALSE impression they had ‘plenty of time’ and there was no need for any kind of ‘intervention’ on his part.

      >> FFSafety also said…
      >>
      >> In hindsight it would have been great if someone had stopped
      >> them and asked for more detail.

      Wow. You are talking as if you consider it to be OPTIONAL that a Incident Management Team know EXACTLY where their resources are and EXACTLY where they are going ( if they are still moving and not safe yet ) when a dangerous fire is exploding like a bomb.

      There is no “would have been great” about it.

      As a ‘Division Supervisor’ moving resources from one Division to another… Marsh was REQUIRED by the rules of his profession to make it CLEAR to ‘Operations’ what was happening… and to be sure they APPROVED of his decision(s).

      Marsh was a “Division Supervisor” on that fire and he was essentially moving ALL of the resources assigned to his Division OUT of their assigned Division ‘A” and into ANOTHER Division on the fire ( Division Z ).

      The official NWCG rules for Division Supervisors REQUIRED that he make this clear to his “Operations Section Chief” and that there be no ‘mysteries’ involved.

      NWCG Task Book for the Position of: Division Supervisor
      Page 13…
      Item 29: Notify Operations Section Chief when resources are
      moved or shared between divisions/groups.

      There is no “would be great if you would do that” in the DIVS TASKBOOK.
      It’s a MUST DO.

      Marsh did NOT communicate the ‘move’ in any kind of clear, effective manner to everyone who SHOULD have known, as also required by just the ‘C’ in LCES.

      >> FFSafety also said…
      >>
      >> who was gonna ask because Cordes knew where they were headed
      >> and he thought they had plenty of time so he and Musser were not
      >> going to second guess.

      You are right… but with a ‘caveat’.

      SPGS1 Gary Cordes seemed to be the ONLY one who understood ANY of Marsh’s references to “predetermined” routes or ‘safety zones’… because Cordes is the one who GAVE the BSR that “predetermined’ label ( to Marsh ) that morning.

      But as for OPS2 Paul Musser…. see above.

      OPS2 Paul Musser told the ADOSH investigators that even after hearing something about ‘predetermined route’… Musser had no frickin’ idea what that meant… and ( apparently ) never even lifted a finger to FIND OUT what that meant.

      >> FFSafety also said…
      >>
      >> When things are heating up on a fire, commo can slip without us even
      >> noticing until commo is bad. Have ya ever been sending on 1 tac and
      >> receiving on another? You know – a conversation where you are sending
      >> on Tac 1 and they are hitting you back on Tac 3 and neither of you are
      >> realizing it because you are hearing each other and not looking down.
      >> You have conversation but if either of you had thought to look you would
      >> have realized you werent really having good commo. Ya. It happens.

      The problem you are now describing sounds like if something isn’t done to improve THAT situation… someone is GOING to get KILLED… but what you are describing is NOT what was happening in Yarnell, Arizona, on June 30, 2013.

      Yes… there were some ‘bad spots’ and people actually had some minor ‘tone guard’ and physical radio problems such as Cordes’ BK portable’s transmit switch taking a dump and he had to throw on the seat and just use his Motorolas ( which did NOT have the Incident’s A2G channel programmed in and he never stopped for a moment to fix THAT problem ).

      But all in all… TWO different investigations actually determined that there were not enough technical issues with radios or tones or lack of repeaters for that to have been an ACTUAL (direct) causal factor in the deaths of 19 Arizona Forestry employees.

      The ‘bad como’ that day was not because of the radios themselves.

      It was because of people either choosing ( or never having been taught how ) to use them to actually COMMUNICATE in an effective, safety-minded way.

      Once again… even Mike Dudley, the Co-leader of the SAIT itself, told a roomful of firefighters in a public speech in Utah on June 20, 2014…

      “A lot of people were talking… very few people were communicating.
      It was almost as if Granite Mountain was being deliberately vague.”

      >> FFSafety also said…
      >>
      >> You don’t realize that there are communications problems until there
      >> are communications problems!!! Everyone sees it in hindsight but the
      >> people in the thick of it don’t get the benefit of our hindsight.

      Again… you are describing a problem that I’m sure exists… and if it isn’t addressed someone else is GOING to get KILLED for this reason alone…

      …but as far as the Yarnell Incident goes… investigations have proven that Granite Mountain did not LACK the ABILITY to communicate. They simply were not communicating “Clearly and Effectively”, as LCES requires.

      We can hear for ourselves in the Caldwell video that Eric Marsh had NO PROBLEMS communicating directly with OPS1 Todd Abel on the north end of the fire. No ‘relay’ needed.

      OPS2 Paul Musser testifies to having been able to communicate directly with DIVSA Eric Marsh, when he wanted to. No ‘relay’ needed.

      Other testimony establishes that OTHERS were hearing Marsh and Steed communicate directly over both TAC and A2G channels without any problems. No ‘relay’ needed.

      The ‘como’ problem that day was that only ONE person seemed to fully UNDERSTAND what they were SAYING… and that was SPGS1 Gary Cordes.

      Even when OPS2 Paul Musser testified to ADOSH that he HEARD Marsh communicating directly with ‘someone else’ and mentioning something about a “predetermined route”… OPS2 Paul Musser never lifted a finger to even find out what that really meant.

      The radios themselves are not to blame for the lack of communication on this particular Incident. No way.

      >> FFSafety also said…
      >>
      >> Your timeline is off too Bob. At 4:30 pm the fire was at least
      >> a good 3/4 of a mile from the Boulder Springs Ranch.

      That is totally false.

      The SAIT’s own published fireline progression charts AND other existing photographic and video evidence proves otherwise.

      ** THE SAIT FIRELINE PROGRESSION CHARTS ( IN 3 DIMENSIONS )

      The following YouTube video shows all of the Special Accident Investigation Team ( SAIT ) official fire progression estimates transposed onto Google Earth in 3 dimensions.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boj4zCdOX5I

      NOTE: The ADOSH investigators agreed that these SAIT fireline progressions could be considered accurate and so they never did their own charts. They simply relied on these SAIT charts for their own investigation.

      At +0:52 into the video… the SAIT’s own 4:30 PM estimated fireline appears transposed onto the ground in 3 dimensions.

      It isn’t even as ‘far along’ as other photographic evidence indicates it REALLY was by 4:30 PM… but it’s pretty close… and even this SAIT 4:30 PM fireline estimate has the ‘flaming front’ of the now south-headed fireline only 1,148 feet due north of the perimeter of the Boulder Springs Ranch.

      1,148 feet equals just 338 yards and only .22 mile away ( LESS than 1/4 mile ).

      The same SAIT 4:30 PM fireline shows the leading edge also only 971 feet away from the ‘mouth’ of the box canyon. That’s just 324 yards and under 2 tenths of a mile ( 0.18 mile ).

      The same SAIT 4:30 PM fireline shows the leading edge also only 1,877 feet away from what would become the actual ‘deployment site’ there on the floor of the box canyon. That’s 626 yards and just over 1/3 of a mile ( 0.36 mile ).

      Reply

      • Yes Bill tends to make his own rules he cut me entirely off for several months until thru private E-Mail I convinced him my statement was a JOKE Referencing and old rivalry between our crews.
        Also I do not think he is use to long replies that you post or the reference of other links that may be causing you problem.

        You do a excellent job of putting the facts out there.

        Reply

        • Actually… in all fairness… Bill Gabbert obviously likes to run a ‘tight ship’ over there at “Wildfire Today” and he expects the comments being made on his constant Blog titles to be about what HE wrote at the top.

          In a way… that thread about the Kyle Dickman FOX news interview got what is commonly referred to in the blogosphere. as “hijacked”.

          That’s when the commenters start going in a direction other than what the article they are commenting on was really about.

          That is kinda/sorta what happened here… and I can see Gabbert getting ‘pissed’ about it and trying to knock out comments that HE didn’t feel were directly related to what HE wrote at the top.

          IMHO… the discussion really is/was related to his article, since Gabbert himself described what Dickman said on-camera as “throwing Eric Marsh under the bus”.

          That’s makes an open review of the evidence about what Eric Marsh may ( or may not ) have done ( and who else knew what when ) sort of “fair game” for commenting on this particular blog post… but maybe Gabbert just didn’t see it that way and thought the thread was being “hijacked”.

          Whatever.

          What Bill Gabbert himself didn’t actually ‘catch’ in the Kyle Dickman on-camera interview was that when Kyle Dickman was asked the direct question… “Is there someone to blame here”?… Dickman first started to say “Incident Commander” or “Incident Management”… but then he caught himself and said “If you need someone to blame… blame Marsh”.

          You have to actually give the FOX anchor some credit here.
          She was pretty ‘savvy’ while she was questioning Dickman and she was asking some pretty damn good questions that still NEED to be asked.
          She was coming from the place of being a fellow ‘journalist’ and
          she was EXPECTING a guy ( Dickman ) who had already published
          a book that his own publishers have been calling “the definitive account
          of the Yarnell Hill Fire” to KNOW the answers to the questions she
          was asking him.

          He ( Dickman ) didn’t.

          He just ‘danced around’ her questions with vague responses that anyone could give even without reading any books… and he proved on-camera that he never really lifted a finger to find out for himself the answers to some of the ongoing ‘mysteries’ of what happened that entire weekend in Yarnell.

          Dickman just did a “feature piece”… and apparently simply didn’t complain when the publishers started calling it “the definitive story of the Yarnell Fire”.

          Here is actually exactly what Kyle Dickman said on-camera in that FOX news interview that Bill Gabbert decided to post about on his ‘Wildfire Today’ Blogsite…

          ———————————————————————
          ( Reporter ): Now.. there have been a series of different reports over the last two years about WHO made the call to move these firefighters and WHO is to blame… because, of course, in stories like this, everyone’s looking for that. An ANSWER to ‘explain the unexplainable’, virtually, but Kyle… what did YOU learn in reporting about this story?

          IS there someone to blame here?

          ( Kyle Dickman ): I mean I think you can blame… we… we can certainly lay blame on the Incident… uhm… on the Superintendent of the Hotshot Crew. His name was Eric Marsh. It was, ultimately, his decision to move the men… uhm… ya know… the truth is that fire was incredibly explosive. Nature was doing things to that… that blaze that… that were pretty exceptional and… uhm… ya know… I think that… that really these men died… uh… uh… because of the way fires are burning today… and so… uhm… but I guess if we… if we have to lay blame… maybe we blame Eric Marsh?
          ————————————————————————-

          NOTICE this obvious “stumble and backtrack” on Dickman’s part…

          “…we can certainly lay blame on the Incident… uhm… on the Superintendent of the Hotshot Crew”.

          Dickman’s FIRST instinct was to (apparently) say something like…

          “we can certainly lay blame on the Incident Commander”.
          OR
          “we can certainly lay blame on the Incident Management”.
          OR
          “we can certainly lay blame on the Incident Management Team”.
          etc., etc….

          but he ‘caught’ himself, backtracked real quick, and then said…

          “we can certainly lay blame on the Superintendent of the Hotshot Crew”.

          Interesting ‘brain fart’ there, Kyle.

          Bill Gabbert did not catch this in HIS Blog post about the interview.

          Reply

          • As you showed and have over and over the actual fire burn towards BSR
            in a 25 Min. time frame to 1630 is the real kicker here.
            if They had had a good lookout or even Como with some one who could see the progression of the Fire they could have moved back up or never gone Down the Canyon. Marsh had to have seen the fire progression before he got back to the crew in time to deploy.
            That’s my take they made a bet they could beet the fire and lost. sooner or later the Family and GM friends are going to have to realize that simple fact.
            They– Marsh and Steed had the responsibility and they made the call, no matter what else was going on with new plans or structures burning.

            Reply

    • I posted the response at 9:30 PM. It stayed in ‘moderation’ for a few hours and then was suddenly ( and fully ) DELETED at exactly 11:15 PM. I figured I had once again hit that mysterious ‘Gabbert wall’ whereby it’s almost impossible to figure out what sort of comments he will ( or won’t ) allow.

      reply:
      I have to point out Bill’s page just like John’s page does that at times…but I cannot see him deleting comments. I just cannot see John or him doing that…If anyone posts a post like you do WWTKTT with all the sources like you do…don’t think you would be deleted on purpose just retry or refresh the page or erase cookies….I want to skim read fast because I have to get some sleep. Sonny comes to get me at 3am-

      Reply

  13. WTKTT–Thanks for jumping in over on Wild Fire Today.
    They have added even more statements that are not found any where and keep changing the story.
    And who said what and what was said and who herd it. anyway take a look if you feel up to the Challenge.

    Reply

    • Will do. We are seeing the ‘ongoing tragedy’ over there at Wildfire today.

      And that is the fact that here it is… TWO YEARS later… and people are still THAT confused about the circumstances under which 19 men were burned to death while working for Arizona Forestry.

      And that there are people who were direct eyewitnesses and participants who are still REFUSING to say what they know and content to leave even their own FF ‘brothers’ grasping at straws.

      A few are the comments over there are perfect representations of that old Mark Twain quote…

      “It ain’t what they don’t know that bothers me.
      It’s what they know fer sure that just ain’t so.”

      Isn’t it interesting, however, to discover that even amongst the “brotherhood”… everyone KNOWS that information has been ( and is till being ) withheld.

      Whoever still thinks otherwise just hasn’t been paying attention.

      Reply

      • Truly information is being with held but add to that distortion of facts. A lush forest has been painted over the barren sands of lies. Awards and trophies and bravos to people that preformed the worst firefighting job in recent history if not ever considering the whole job from beginning to end. Shame, shame to those keeping the secret of their woeful job that killed nineteen young men. Yea-lay all the blame to the dead men while they cry out from their graves that the whole truth be known as to their demise. For sure ignorance and carelessness was on their part, but why did they take such risks. Who trained these men that they would do that and who was foolish enough even to ask them to come down to help protect structures? Do you hand out awards to anyone for their great job as firefighter boss on this Yarnell blunder? Yes and the public seems to have gone along — their eyes shaded from the real truth.

        But I am not an authority or a firefighter. Yet I clearly see how badly this fire was handled. Hell is the abyss one enters by going down in a thicket of brush that only a bear can wallow through while weather conditions are bound to change the direction of a fire in a heart beat and with raging winds to drive it up a slope at velocities that no man can out run in a thicket of brush.

        That day we were on the mountain and when I topped out the wind had already shifted to the south, though gently–but by the time we had dropped off on the Congress side it was already picking up. The argument Joy and I had is a testimony to how foolish it would have been for us to challenge nature. The fact that learned firemen would be convinced to go down in that canyon reminds me of how at that very point from the two track Joy would have met her demise had she dropped off at that point. Even after I tracked up that hill to the top I did not really want to go back to see if she had gone down–fortunately she had not and this time I did a Dr. Putnam on how he saved the lives of green horn fire fighters. I cursed and got stern–something with a hard head like Joy that might have driven her down — but it did not. So why would they go down into that brush and it was thick. Joy’s photos at the very place they died that early morning do not lie as to the conditions those men had encountered. Cordes knows and so does the majority of the men that fought that fire that day. All the honchos know and kid Donut is happy to report on one channel that the truth would go with him to his grave while the unfortunates cry from their grave that all the truth be known to the world. Will it win out–If you are religious you would think the devil has the upper hand here when you see the sole survivor of that crew of 20 withholding information yet saying he is a convert and I imagine one of the studies under Mr. Willis–the other survivor boss of that crew and total incident. Is that Christianity?-A slap at the dead and a dishonor to truth. Shame on those that held back the truth and worked to cover up what really happened. Shame on anyone that worked this fire and took awards. Does your heart feel guilt–it should.

        I told Joy we need to start looking at the dead beyond the 19. How come we have 50 and now more dead in the Yarnell area. This is not a coincidence to the fire–It is indeed related and I believe the fire is a causal factor in these obituaries that keep popping up. This is where we need to a study. Seems like that too many are thinking this retardant is a benign agent that has nothing to do with killing old people. There have been no long time health studies, although when it is dumped into a river thousands of fish die–a fact you can read about on line. Yet that NH3 gas that is given off is recognized as a lung tissue killer. Well it works out that we got 300 thousand gallons of that delightful lung killer dumped right next to our dwellings in Yarnell. Yes and now many of the locals if they are aged and have not expired since the fire are in trouble with their lungs. Heart conditions are connected to the lungs and those hidden chemicals must have added to the NH3 effects. If Zack Ashoor had not died since the fire–a young 29–and I hiked him with his asthma problem–he would be working on this problem with me. Joy is helping get a full list of the deceased since the fire–the 50 plus beyond the 19. Their demise was slow and painful if it is like my own. Lungs no longer work as well and it becomes painful to hike any distance and now the heart and brain no longer get the proper oxygen and those organs suffer as do all others in the body that no longer has sufficient oxygen. So the NH3 from the retardant either hangs you to an oxygen bottle or kills you slowly–yet not so slowly considering that more than 50 elderly have succumbed since the fire. Zack by the way was on the state respiratory board in Arizona–he was working on a very light respirator for fire fighters–maybe I could have directed to him on a study to this retardant and its effects on fire fighters.

        Reply

        • Truly information is being with held but add to that distortion of facts. A lush forest has been painted over the barren sands of lies. I AGREE WITH YOU SONNY..THEY SHOULD OF BETTER INVESTIGATED THE AREA BEFORE THE ASH WAS WASHED AWAY AND THE GROWTH IS LIKE IT IS. Awards and trophies and bravos to people that preformed the worst firefighting job in recent history if not ever considering the whole job from beginning to end. I JUST DID NOT LIKE ACCOLADES BEING ACCEPTED OR BONUS BEING MADE OR VACATIONS GIVEN OR ANY LUXURY OR PRAISE ESPECIALLY WHEN WE SPOKE TO BRYAN SMITH AND GARY IS IN THE MEDIA FOR SAVING LIVES AND BRYAN WAS LIKE NO THE GUY THAT SAVED ME WAS AGE 44-54…GARY, SORRY YOU DO NOT LOOK LIKE HOW BRYAN DESCRIBED HIS CAPTAIN WHO SAVED HIM. ALSO I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT PAUL MORIN. Shame, shame to those keeping the secret of their woeful job that killed nineteen young men. I GUESS WE HEAR SO MANY AGENDAS AND ANGLES AND PERCEPTIONS SINCE THE FIRE ON THE FIRE —SO UNTIL ALL THE FACTS ARE OUT I THINK THIS IS A HARSH STATEMENT IN MY HUMBLE OPINIONYea-lay all the blame to the dead men I HAVE SEEN THAT AND THAT IS UNFAIR…while they cry out from their graves that the whole truth be known as to their demise. I HOPE ONE DAY SONNY IT HAPPENS THAT WAYFor sure ignorance and carelessness was on their part, but why did they take such risks.GOOD TOPIC. Who trained these men GOOD TOPIC. IS ALL THE EVALUATIONS OF EACH GMHS PUBLIC FOIA…CAN A REGULAR FOLK ASK FOR IT? that they would do that and who was foolish enough even to ask them to come down to help protect structures? AGAIN JUST PIECES MISSING THERE SONNY…Do you hand out awards to anyone for their great job as firefighter boss on this Yarnell blunder? HMMM…ROUGH TOPIC FOR ME— I SAY NO. Yes and the public seems to have gone along — their eyes shaded from the real truth.TRUE—WHERE WAS I…OH YES, SELLING AT MAYOR ED’S TRADING POST AND THIS COUPLE WHO LIVES IN GLEN ILAH- GAIL AND JOHN—NEAR DINO AND VICKI AND JIM NAGEL (THAT IS RIDGEWAY SO YOU KNOW)—THE YARNELL FIRE WAS NOT OF ANY INTEREST TO THE COUPLE TO EVEN TALK ON IT. ALL SHE DID SAY WAS BETWEEN 3–4PM THE HOME BEHIND HER EXPLODED. NO MORE DETAILS. NO INTEREST IN SHARING PHOTOS. “MOVE FORWARD” OUTLOOK. SLOWLY AND I MEAN SLOWLY PEOPLE WHO SAID TWO YEARS AGO THEY WOULD SHARE THEIR PHOTOS FINALLY DID TODAY AND I EMAILED THEM TO WWTKTT, MARTI AND GARY BECAUSE FOR SOME REASON BOB POWERS EMAIL WAS NOT POPPING UP IN SAVED AREA SO THIS ACCOUNT IS FROM ANNA MARIE LECHNER. I AM NOT GOING TO FORWARD THEM TO OTHERS BECAUSE I AM BUSY TRYING TO COME UP WITH ER/AMBULANCE FUNDS BUT IF ONE OF THE FOLKS I SENT IT TO DECIDES TO TALK ON IT HERE THEY ARE FREE TO DO SO WITH NAME AND ALL ATTACHED AND LOCATION. I DO APOLOGIZE TO THE 3 I SENT IT TO BECAUSE I SENT IT AND FORWARDED AS I GOT IT AND SO IT SEEMS LIKE ALOT OF EMAILS. I THOUGHT SOME OF THE FIRE ONES WERE INTERESTING AND THE FIRE TRUCKS AND PLANES AND SUCH…THANK YOU ANNMARIE FOR TAKING THE TIME OUT TO LET US PROPERLY ASSESS THE YHF.

          But I am not an authority or a firefighter.YEP, YOU ARE SONNY… Yet I clearly see how badly this fire was handled. Hell is the abyss one enters by going down in a thicket of brush that only a bear can wallow through while weather conditions are bound to change the direction of a fire in a heart beat and with raging winds to drive it up a slope at velocities that no man can out run in a thicket of brush.

          That day we were on the mountain and when I topped out the wind had already shifted to the south,YOU MENTIONED IT TO ME WHEN IT HAPPENED WITH CONCERN TOO though gently–but by the time we had dropped off on the Congress side it was already picking up. The argument Joy and I had is a testimony to how foolish it would have been for us to challenge nature. THAT IS THE MOUNTAIN MAN KNOWLEDGE IN YOUThe fact that learned firemen would be convinced to go down in that canyon reminds me of how at that very point from the two track Joy would have met her demise had she dropped off at that point. AGAIN —FOR THE RECORD—I WAS NEVER GOING DOWN WHERE THE GMHS WENT BUT AROUND TOWARDS CATTLE POND AREA NEAR HELMS—WHICH FIRE HISTORIAN STEPHEN PYNE AND DR TED PUTNAM STATED IT WAS MORE NARROW AND WAS MORE DANGEROUS THAN THE CANYON. Even after I tracked up that hill to the top I did not really want to go back to see if she had gone down–fortunately she had not and this time I did a Dr. Putnam on how he saved the lives of green horn fire fighters. I cursed and got stern–INDEED HE DID—something with a hard head like Joy that might have driven her down — but it did not. OKAY- NO COMMENTSo why would they go down into that brush and it was thick. I DO NOT KNOW WHY EXCEPT A RADIO MISCOMMUNICATION PERHAPS—Joy’s photos at the very place they died that early morning do not lie as to the conditions those men had encountered.TRUE. MORGAN LOEW USE TO HAVE IT WHEN YOU GOOGLED YARNELL HIKERS BUT THE VIDEO HAS SINCE VANISHED BUT MORGAN WILL LOOK INTO IT HE SAID Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 11:36 AM (Let me see where the video file is located.
          -Morgan) Cordes knows and so does the majority of the men that fought that fire that day. WE HAVE HEARD THAT FROM ALOT ON THE FIRE YET A MAN WHO LOST HIS HOME IN THE FIRE WAS A FIREFIGHTER FROM PEORIA SO I LOOK FORWARD TO HIS ACCOUNTS BECAUSE HE WROTE TO VICKI:Date: (((Sun, 12 Jul 2015 16:39:43 -0700 I do have pictures and some video, I will definitely get you some soon. Right now I need to get my comp to the Apple store to get a new hard drive so can’t do anything for a few weeks.
          I don’t have much video of the fire, just what I put on YouTube.
          Thanks, Don))) For me, Vicki asked Don for that link to youtube.

          All the honchos know KNOW WHAT? SOMETHING? and kid Donut is happy to report on one channel that the truth would go with him to his grave while the unfortunates cry from their grave that all the truth be known to the world.NOT JUST THE LOVED ONES BECAUSE THE WORLD MOURNED THESE MEN TOO Will it win out–If you are religious you would think the devil has the upper hand here when you see the sole survivor of that crew of 20 withholding information yet saying he is a convert and I imagine one of the studies under Mr. Willis–the other survivor boss of that crew and total incident. Is that Christianity?I DO NOT AGREE HERE. ON BOTH ACCOUNTS. I DO NOT SEE THE TIE TO CHRISTIANITY AND THEIR IN HOUSE MENTALITY RIGHT NOW. I HAVE WITNESSED BEHAVIOR OF OMISSION AS WELL AS COURT SIDE HEARSAY FROM WILLIS SHARING IT AS HE HEARD IT ELSEWHERE TO HIM BUT TO WHAT DEGREE- WHO KNOWS— I LIKE WILLIS AND HIS WIFE—SO IF I CAN PLACE THEM ON A NEUTRAL LIST UNTIL EVIDENCE CAN BE BUILT THAN I HAVE THAT RIGHT. A slap at the dead and a dishonor to truth. Shame on those that held back the truth EXACTLY BUT PLACING NAMES OUT LIKE SUCH WE DO NOT KNOW WHO KNOWS WHAT JUST HEARSAY SONNY—and worked to cover up what really happened. Shame on anyone that worked this fire and took awards. AMEN THERE. Does your heart feel guilt–it should.I AGREE.

          I told Joy we need to start looking at the dead beyond the 19. I ALREADY BEEN DOWN THIS PATH…AFTER MY HEALTH AND HIKES I MAY THINK TO REJOIN DOING THIS AREA BUT IT SEEMS NOONE GIVES A SHIT LOCALLY OR IN THE WORLD BUT ME AND SONNY ON THE TOPIC—How come we have 50 and now more dead in the Yarnell area. GOOD QUESTION AND THAT ALONE IS WORTH AN INVESTIGATION. This is not a coincidence to the fire–It is indeed related and I believe the fire is a causal factor in these obituaries that keep popping up.IT IS SO SAD TO MY COMMUNITY DWINDLING..PEOPLE WHO NOT TOO LONG AGO NEVER HAD A HEALTH CONCERN NOW DO OR HAVE DIED…I JUST WOKE UP TO WORK ON SOME STUFF IN GARAGE BUT THINK I WILL HIT THE HAY AGAIN—SUN ZAPPED ME TODAY. This is where we need to a study. I AGREESeems like that too many are thinking this retardant is a benign agent that has nothing to do with killing old people.WHERE DO YOU GO FOR SUCH A STUDY SONNY? There have been no long time health studies, although when it is dumped into a river thousands of fish die–a fact you can read about on line. Yet that NH3 gas that is given off is recognized as a lung tissue killer. ASK BRENT YADON- HE KNOWS THE INGREDIENTS SONNY-Well it works out that we got 300 thousand gallons of that delightful lung killer dumped right next to our dwellings in Yarnell. Yes and now many of the locals if they are aged and have not expired since the fire are in trouble with their lungs. Heart conditions are connected to the lungs and those hidden chemicals must have added to the NH3 effects. If Zack Ashoor had not died since the fire–a young 29–and I hiked him with his asthma problem–he would be working on this problem with me. Joy is helping get a full list of the deceased since the fire–the 50 plus beyond the 19. NOT YET. I AM JUST TRYING TO FIGURE MY BLOOD LABS AND CATSCAN AND MRI AND XRAYS BEFORE I THINK THERE—IT IS NICE I GOT THEM BUT HOW I GOT THEM…IT WILL COST ME AN ARM AND A LEG—Their demise was slow and painful if it is like my own. Lungs no longer work as well and it becomes painful to hike any distance and now the heart and brain no longer get the proper oxygen and those organs suffer as do all others in the body that no longer has sufficient oxygen. So the NH3 from the retardant either hangs you to an oxygen bottle or kills you slowly–yet not so slowly considering that more than 50 elderly have succumbed since the fire. Zack by the way was on the state respiratory board in Arizona–he was working on a very light respirator for fire fighters–maybe I could have directed to him on a study to this retardant and its effects on fire fighters.HOWEVER HE WAS YOUNG AND PASSED ON. OKAY. SONNY I READ IT AND REPLIED HERE BUT DO KNOW THIS…I WILL NOT REJOIN THIS TOPIC UNTIL I HANDLE WHAT I NEED TO DO—OKAY. AS FOR LAST WEEK AND THAT LOVED ONE OF THE GMHS- I HAVE NO CLUE BECAUSE IT WAS TO BE A FUTURE HIKE BUT I AM NOT SURE THAT WILL PLAY OUT WITH ME OR SONNY BECAUSE OF A DIRECT QUESTION ASKED OF ME THAT I COULD NOT MEET—NOT MY STYLE…I WON’T WRITE IT HERE BUT IT WAS INAPPROPRIATE FOR WHO I AM—I JUST WANT TO KEEP GATHERING THE INFORMATION FOR BETTER CLARITY. GOOD NIGHT.

          Reply

  14. **
    ** FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THE SETTLEMENT PRESS
    ** CONFERENCE THAT TOOK PLACE ON JUNE 29, 2015.

    Here is a FULL transcript of that June 29, 2015 Settlement Press Conference, including the part at the very end when the attorney for the 12 Granite Mountain families, Patrick McGroder, is heard admitting to his opponent, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, that Brnovich “got the better of him” during the settlement negotiations.

    Just before the video ends… we see McGroder meeting Brnovich in the center of the stage and ( right in front of the still “open” microphone ) having their mano-y-mano “Thank you… NO… thank YOU” moment.

    McGroder then points his finger right at his opponent and says…

    “You GOT me!”

    Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich responds to McGroder with three “HA HA HAs” of laughter, and the video ends.

    This transcript also contains the ACTUAL questions that were being asked by the reporters, and also contains the background conversation between attorney Pat McGroder and Arizona State Forester Jeff Whitney where they decide they are just ‘annoyed’ by the questions the reporters are asking and they decide to ‘cut them off’.

    ABC15 carried the Settlement Press Conference LIVE and their own raw video recording of the press conference was posted to their PUBLIC YouTube account later that evening.

    It is 45 minutes and 33 seconds long and it is HERE…

    YouTube title: FNN: Yarnell Hill Fire Settlement Press Conference
    Posted by YouTube User: FOX 10 Phoenix
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7GASJl5T6Q

    I am sure this ‘transcript’ is a little larger than what is allowed in one posting, so the
    transcript itself will now be posted as a series of ‘Replies’ to this message…

    Reply

    • The FULL Transcript of the June 29, 2015 Settlement Press Conference…
      ——————————————————————————-
      +0:00
      NOTE: As the video starts, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich is standing at the podium and looking at the documents before him. Arizona State Forester Jeff Whitney is flipping some pages of the documents and ‘explaining’ something to him.

      ( Jeff Whitney… whispering to Mark Brnovich ): This sentence shoulda been quite before we got started.

      ( Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich ): Okay. Thank you.

      ( Jeff Whitney… whispering to Mark Brnovich ): You’re welcome.

      ( Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich ): Thank you.

      Everyone ready?

      Oh… uh… Senator Pierce… ya wanna come?…

      NOTE: Brnovich gestures to the back of the room in an apparent offer to allow Arizona State Senator Steve Pierce to say something. Pierce says something (inaudible) that makes Brnovich smile, then Brnovich continues with his prepared speech…

      Uh… First and foremost… um… I want to thank the families… um… that are here today. Um… we know that we’re approaching the two year anniversary of this terrible tragedy in Yarnell Fire… and I’m glad to announce as the State Attorney General, working with…uh… folks like the State Forester, working with… uh… plaintiff’s counsel, we have reached a final settlement… uh… regarding… in litigation… regarding litigation involving the Yarnell Fire.

      Um… this settlement will resolve mult… resolve multiple claims for the families of the Granite Mountain Interagency Hots… Hotshot crew that perished in the two thousand and thirteen fire… um… I want you to know as the Attorney General… and I came here… uh… very early… I think probly my first or second week in office… I… I sat down with Mr. McGroder. I also sat down with our lawyers, liability management section, and I wanted them to know two things.

      Um… ONE is… as a State… um… we don’t measure our success in wins and losses. We measure our success in whether justice is done for victims.

      Uh… SECONDLY… we are not State Farm. We are not Allstate. We are the State of Arizona… and that means that we have an obligation… um… when there are times when we can settle and resolve matters and hopefully prevent future tragedies from happening… we must do that.

      And that’s what this settlement does.

      I believe it’s a win-win from… uh… for everyone.

      Um… there’s nothing I can say or do… um… to ( pause ) comfort the hurt that the families must be feeling… um… but at least we’ve been able to come together and hopefully prevent such a tragedy from happening again.

      Um… so… I… I… want to just thank the families once again. Thank you Pat ( McGroder )… uh… thank you to the Forester for everything you’ve done… and… um… ultimately this settlement… um…

      +2:09
      ( NOTE: Someone in the first row asked a question which is barely audible in the video.
      ( Sounds like: “Who had control of the settlement?” )

      Do you want me to answer that? ( Inaudible response ). Okay.

      Ulti… ultimately this settlement… um… doesn’t assign… ya know… blame the state… um… the agencies aren’t… aren’t admitting any sort of guilt or… or negligence because frankly that wasn’t the goal, ulitmately, of all of our parties.

      Um… ya know… we have another motto around here and that’s “don’t fix blame… fix the problem”

      Some folks look for answers… others look for fights… and what we did in this situation is we wanted to look for answers to prevent these kind of tragedies from occurring in the future and to make sure that justice… that victims and their families are served the justice they deserve.

      So thank you very much and now Mike Liburdi from the Governor’s office will say a few words.

      ( Mike Liburdi, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey’s general counsel, takes the podium ).

      +2:58
      ( Mike Liburdi ): Thank you Attorney General Brnovich.

      I’m Mike Liburdi. I’m Governor Ducey’s general counsel, and I just wanted to say a few short things because really this day is about the families of the fallen firefighters… um… and to respect their memory. On behalf of Governor Ducey we thank the State Forester and the Industrial Commission for reaching a settlement with the families of our fallen firefighters. We hope that this will bring closure for the families and encourage safer policies for fighting wildfires in the future.

      ( Pat McGroder, attorney for the plaintiffs, now takes the podium. As he does so… he )
      ( passes by Roxanne Warneke holding her baby Billie Grace Warneke, who was born )
      ( after her father William ‘Billy’ Warneke died in Yarnell, and attorney Pat McGroder says )
      ( “Hey Billie” to her as he walks to the podium ).

      +3:42
      ( Pat McGroder ): Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

      My name is Pat McGroder… together with my partners Shannon Clark and Lincoln Combs… we had the honor of representing twelve of the Granite Mountain Hotshot families.

      We’re here today to talk about what has occurred in the litigation involving the State of Arizona and the State Forester.

      Two years tomorrow… Arizona suffered a national tragedy.

      Tomorrow, the families will grieve publicly… but they’ve been grieving every day for the last two years.

      Their losses… immeasurable. Their pain… their despair… every day of their life over the loss of their loved ones.

      The outpouring of national empathy and support for these families in Arizona was unprecedented… however… the darkness and despair caused by this tragedy is ongoing for these families… nevermore to be forgotten.

      As the facts of the tragedy began to unfold… rumors… innuendos… speculation… seemed to run rampant.

      Various reports were authored. Charges were made. Recriminations received.

      I don’t know that we’re ever going to know every detail of that fateful day, June thirtieth, two thousand thirteen… but to the extent that these plaintiffs, these family members, these loved ones, particularly these 3 women of courage, and commitment and dignity behind me ( he looks over to Juliann Ashcraft, Deborah Pfingston, and Roxanne Warneke, who are present )… made an effort to try and bring transparency and, more importantly, change… which would ensure that a tragedy like this never happens again… whether it be in Arizona, or anywhere else.

      We were asked, and had the privilege, to represent twelve of the families in wrongful death litigation against the State of Arizona.

      We also had the privilege of representing Mrs. Misner, Warneke and Ashcraft in benefit cases that, fortunately, we were successful in in the city of Prescott.

      As many of you know, the only remedy for wrongful death action are damages.

      Compensatory damages.

      But that’s not what this case was about, and that’s not what this case has EVER been about.

      Our clients wanted transparency and change… to ensure that what happened to their loved ones that day would never happen again.

      Acting selflessly, they wanted to create a legacy for their loved ones, lest they ever be forgotten… and in doing so ensure that change and remedial measures are enacted… as a fitting remembrance and an everlasting imprimatur of these fallen heroes, on wildlife science, wildland fire fighting, and wildland fire fighting operations.

      They had a vision… and that vision was what was in the best interests of the State of Arizona and what was in the best interest of the families.

      That vision was simple.

      How can the State of Arizona and how can these families best by served by continuing litigation… whether it be in the context of the wrongful death action that we filed… or the concomitant litigation involving ADOSH and the State Forester arising out of citations, fines and recriminations… uh… by ADOSH.

      The vision was brought to, and supported by, Governor Ducey.

      The enormity of the commitment of Mike Liburdi, Governor Ducey is appreciated by the family.

      This vision was also brought to Attorney General Brnovich, a man who believes in creativity and innovation and not necessarily business as usual.

      The families thank Governor Ducey.

      They THANK Mark Brnovich… and ALL the Attorney Generals that worked so hard on this case to bring closure.

      +8:37
      Chief of Staff Bailey, Mark Heathcote, Terri Harrison, Joy Hernbrode, David Selden, ALL the lawyers that were involved on the State of Arizona side to try and bring a thoughtful, analytical, non-incriminatory result to this litigation.

      Lest I forget… this resolution was THREE parties.

      It was us, the State of Arizona, and “ADOSH and the State of Arizona”.

      After three grueling days of mediation we finally were able to effectuate a settlement.

      Besides displaying extraordinary leadership in the form of Governor Ducey, and Mark Brnovich and state senator Steve Pierce, and Risk Manager Mr. Di Ciccio… Governor Ducey blessed us with something very near and dear, and that is a new State Forester Jeff Whitney.

      A former Hotshot, he came to this problem without an agenda, without any preconceived notions… with a concept of what was best for the State of Arizona and what was best for the families.

      He talked to our families.
      He cried with our families.

      He demonstrated the type of integrity and honesty and character that we demand so much from our state government.

      Forester Whitney told us about changes that he had made as a result of the Yarnell experience.

      He told us about changes that he WOULD consider making in the future.

      And then he sat with us and the families and looked over some 50 or 60 recommendations that were generated by our families.

      Not only these courageous women… but ALL of the families that we represented.

      And we talked about those.
      And we talked about those in a non-incriminating way.

      No fault. No blame. No recrimination.

      Simply what is in the best interest of the Sate of Arizona, what is in the best interest of these families, and what is in the best interest of wildland fire science as we move forward.

      As a result of that collaboration and that cooperation, and all the emotional toll that this case has taken on our clients… we were able to achieve a result.

      ( Continued next Reply… )

      Reply

      • ( Continued… Attorney Patrick McGroder is still speaking… )

        ( Patrick McGroder ): The result is twofold.

        Number one… most importantly… most importantly… we have worked with the State Forester, collaboratively and cooperatively, to try and make the State Forestry Department of Arizona the best in the country.

        Through dialogue, through change, through remedial measures, through innovation and creativity that Jeff Whitney has brought to this office and our families have supplemented with their own suggestions and their own thoughts.

        Ya know, tomorrow… um… the families hearts will again turn to the tragedy two years ago and, of course, there will be a swirl of activity surrounded… uh… that tragedy anniversary.

        At the end of the day tomorrow… these families will have to return to their homes, to their memorabilia, to their pictures, to their memories, to the continuing thoughts of those that they love.

        To say that these clients are courageous would be an understatement.

        They’re not complicated people.
        They’re simple people… that believe in character and honesty.
        They’re hard-working Arizonans.
        They’re families who have suffered the most immeasurable of all tragedies.

        Their hell on earth.

        For the families.. um… I hope this settlement can achieve a modicum of peace.

        I’m not sure that it ever will but I hope it does.

        Knowing most importantly that through this settlement the legacy of their loved ones will never be forgotten… and that was an important common denominator among the thread that led to the vision and led to people like Governor Ducey and Mark Brnovich and Steve Pierce and ALL of the Assistant Attorney generals that came to the table.

        They understood how important a peaceful, collaborative resolution was to this case.

        +14:04
        ( Reporter… interrupts McGroder ): Could you give us the DETAILS of the actual settlement? Just run ’em off?

        ( Patrick McGroder ): Yea. I’m comin’ to that.

        In addition to change and remedial measures that have already been made, are considering to be made, the State Forester has agreed to make changes that we have suggested. He’s agreed to review and analyze other suggestions that could not be implemented immediately because of statutory restraints or budgetary restraints or that required a national mandate so that Arizona, although striving to be the best, is not gonna stand out in the cold when it comes to communication and technol… technology and all the advances that Forester Whitney has looked at, has reviewed and will implement.

        The other piece is the compensation piece.

        The compensation piece is reflective of the motivation of these families.

        The compensation piece calls for fifty thousand dollars per family… which… compared to the enormity of this tragedy sends the strongest possible message that NO way, NO how was money or compensation for these families the motivating force in this litigation… and as you’ll hear shortly… uh… some of the families… uh… are setting up a non-profit foundation to support wildland firefighters and all of those proceeds will be donated to that new foundation.

        And I’m glad you asked that question because I want the record to be VERY clear, and I want this message to ring out… loud and clear whether it be in Prescott, Arizona… whether it be in Timbuktu.

        Lest ANYONE challenge the motivation of these families, their commitment to the greater good or the terms of this settlement… let me simply say that they have gone through hell.

        The integrity, the character, the honesty that these women and ALL the families have displayed in trying to not only learn from this horrible tragedy while trying to put the… their lives back in some semblance of order… with their children… tryin’ to explain to their children what happened to dad… why he’s not here on birthdays and holidays and anniversaries…

        But at the same time acting out of the most pure of motives… and that is to make sure this tragedy never happens again.

        Uh… the lawyers in my office… Shannon Clarke is here… uh.. Tom Kelly our co-counsel… uh… Caroline McGroder, who doesn’t like to use her last name, a lawyer in our office. We’re very proud of having the opportunity to serve these women… and these families… and we’re very proud of our ability to bring together such a public / private partnership with the help of ALL of the public servants that I’ve mentioned… to achieve the greater good.

        ( Billy Warneke, the baby, starts to cry and Deborah Pfingston’s husband takes him and head for the side door. He passes the podium and Pat McGroder announces… )

        +17:45
        ( Pat McGroder ): That’s Billie Warneke, by the way.

        +17:48
        ( Reporter ): Pat?

        ( Pat McGroder ): Yes.

        ( Reporter ): What about the ADOSH… ya know… there are those of us that sat through those hearings. All that. What happens to the whole ADOSH penalty… and recognizing penalties designed to get people to act properly in the future. Where does that fit in?

        ( Pat McGroder ): As I understand it, Howard, the… uh… ADOSH will be issuing a concomitant press release with this press conference. The ‘ADOSH / State Forester’ matter has been resolved on terms that are acceptable to both sides.

        Uh… we were present… but not privy to or party to the negotiations at the mediation so I will… uh… address those… uh… answers to the ADOSH folks… who are not here but, as I understand, going to issue a press release today… uh… setting forth the terms and conditions of that part of the agreement.

        So… uh… let me turn it over to… uh.. Roxanne Warneke.

        You’re gonna hear from Roxy as well as… uh… Deborah Pfingston, the mother of Andrew Ashcraft.

        Roxy?…

        ( Continued next ‘Reply’… )

        Reply

      • ( Continued… Roxanne Warneke comes to the podium… )

        +18:52
        ( Roxanne Warneke ): Good afternoon.

        As you all know we are hear to announce that the Granite Mountain families, the Arizona State Forestry, and ADOSH came to a settlement in principle that originated from the deaths of the nineteen Granite Mountain Hotshots at the Yarnell Hill Fire on June thirtieth, twenty thirteen.

        My husband Billy Warneke was one of the nineteen firefighters that died that day.

        Two weeks after my husband died I was able to visit the deployment site.

        At the site a flagpole was… was… put out with the American flag to mark the site.

        I kept my eye on it as I neared closer to the… to the flagpole, preparing myself emotionally and mentally for the desolation that I would see.

        As I stood at that flagpole I was able to see charred cacti, blackened boulders and blackened dirt… but what took my breath away was the topography.

        I had seen topography maps of the area… and that showed the steep hills… but I was not prepared for it.

        ( She pauses to collect herself )

        What my eyes saw were boulders that were the size of cars… and I had remembered a saying that my… my husband had once told me when we were deer scouting two years before.

        He said to never go into a canyon.

        That inside the canyon would be thick brush and that wind travels through that canyon.

        I know my… my husband’s military and firefighting training.

        Descending into that canyon went against everything that he had ever been taught in advanced land navigation that he had spent over eight years studying and practicing.

        I was enraged.

        After that day I knew that I needed answers.

        It prompted me and my family to file a suit against the State of Arizona to prevent another tragedy like this from happening.

        To prevent Yarnell Hill.
        To prevent the Dude Fire.
        The South Canyon Fire.
        The Thirty Mile Fire.
        The Esperanza Fire,
        and the Kramer Fire…

        …from ever reoccurring again.

        I do not want history to repeat itself as it has done several times before.

        I do not want my husband and his firefighter brothers to have died in vain.

        And I dread the day when my daughter asks me WHY she never had a chance to meet her father… because he died before she was born.

        As this case has reached its resolution in principle… and my PSPRS case settled earlier this year… I can say that I am one step closer to closure… and with the love and support from my family, my friends, my community… I have been able to heal.

        And from the kinship that I have experienced with my Granite Mountain family… I have seen and felt that love is a true gift from god.

        But the greatest outcome of this lawsuit is for the State of Arizona, the leader in wildland firefighting… and… for the wildland firefighters who bravely defend the citizens of increasing threat of wildfire.

        I am proud to announce that the Warneke, Ashcraft and Pfingston families will be donating ALL of the settlement award… and we will be creating a non-profit organization that will be an advocate for wildland firefighter safety.

        The Wildland Firefighter Guardian Institute, a 501(C3), that arose from the Yarnell Hill Fire tragedy.

        A foundation that will be formed from the love, the concern and the dedication to wildland firefighters from the wives and the parents of the fallen firefighters of Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew.

        Wildland firefighter safety is of the utmost importance to our organization.

        We will champion firefighter safety through independent investigations, education, and real-life support for firefighter, family and fire community.

        Truth, transparency, accountability, change.

        The future in wildland firefighting is NOW.

        The organization will conduct independent investigations on fatalities, injuries, equipment and technology.

        We will be a wildland firefighter watchdog group where anyone can report to us anonymously to seek positive change in wildland firefighting.

        We will offer scholarships for safety investigations, programs and courses.

        We will be an advocate for an accredited school of wildland fire at universities with a focus in wildland fire.

        We will outreach to local communities to teach how wildland fires affect them and the importance on defensible space.

        We will find new safety techniques and equipment to benefit the safety of wildland firefighters.

        From the Yarnell Hill Fire… a great majority of wildland firefighters, first responders and dispatchers suffered PTSD from the deaths of the Granite Mountain Hotshots.

        We have personally felt, and we have SEEN, the effects of PTSD, which we will facilitate PTSD counseling for any of those involved in ANY fire tragedy.

        Lastly… I would like to close to a… with a big ‘Thank You’ to my attorneys Pat McGroder, Shannon Clark and Tom Kelly.

        Thank you for passionately fighting on behalf of our loved ones.

        Thank you to ADOSH, the State Forestry, Attorney General Brnovich and Governor Ducey for understanding and accepting that wildland firefighter safety needs to be the first priority… and for agreeing that wildland firefighting needs to be brought into the twenty-first century.

        Thank you to everyone who supported us… for supporting the Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew… but most importantly… thank you for supporting our nation’s wildland firefighters.

        ( Roxanne Warkneke leaves the podium and Deborah Pfingston steps up )…
        ( Continued next Reply )…

        Reply

      • ( Continued… Deborah Pfingston takes the podium following )
        ( Roxanne Warneke… )

        +25:54
        ( Deborah Pfingston, Andrew Ashcraft’s mother, takes the podium.. )

        ( Deborah Pfingston ): I’m old. I need readers.

        I would like to say ‘Thank You’ to Pat McGroder, Tom Kelly, and Shannon Clark.

        It is through their sound management, passion and deep hearts that we are here today. I cannot express my complete gratitude to these men.

        Since the moment I received the call I lost Andrew I have been working with a tear in my heart that will never be healed.

        When our family hiked to the fatality site… I knew we needed to find TRUTH and make changes to ensure that no other mother will hear the words that her son is not coming home.

        It has been TWO LONG YEARS of questions, discovery, frustration and education.

        This family has been humbled by the love and support from around the world, the country and our neighborhood.

        Please know this. This is a beginning… not an end.

        There are several families that have started foundations to continue the motto of the Granite Mountain Hotshots… “Esse Quam Videri”.

        To be, rather than to seem to be.

        There’s the Wade Parker Foundation.
        The William Howard Warneke Memorial Foundation.
        and the Kevin Woyjeck Explorers for Life Association

        …with more on the horizon

        ( SIDENOTE: Pfingston makes no mention of the “Eric Marsh Foundation for Wildland Firefighting”, which was founded by Amanda Marsh in October of 2014 and has been quite active since then in its fundraising efforts ).

        And as stated… the Ashcrafts, Pfingstons and Warnekes are standing together giving ALL… may I say that again… ALL of the money awarded to us through these lawsuits and giving all of our passion to form the Wildland Firefighting Guardian Institute.

        Our mission statement is as follows…

        Wildland firefighter safety is the utmost importance to our organization. We will champion firefighter safety through independent investigation, education and real-life support for firefighter families and firefighters and the fire community. Truth, transparency, accountability and change.

        The future in wildland fire safety is NOW.

        Truth, transparency, accountability and change has been our mantra since the day it began.

        We STILL have work on the horizon.

        The lessons learned, the TRUTH about the death of our sons, husbands and fathers WILL be coming.

        The fact that we now are working with the State Forester and ADOSH to provide transparency.

        We know we have a Hotshot as a Forester.

        Accountability is for the Granite Mountain Hotshots, our boys lost, and for Granite Mountain Hotshot alumni. They deserve this.

        +28:55
        Now change.

        Change that started in our long ( inaudible ) with discussions with the Granite Mountain Hotshot alumni and family. Changes already started with the Forester who worked with our guys. He KNEW their unquestionable skills. Wildland firefighting will be now more effective.

        The interface between urban and wildland is now nationally recognized.

        Incident commands WILL change.

        The tragedy’s truth and the State of Arizona will be on the cutting edge of updated wildland fighting.

        The Crew.

        Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshots were an amajit… amazing group of men.

        They were godly men.

        This crew proved ( themselves ), and they strived to be the best crew in wildland fire.

        They KNEW fire.
        They KNEW family.
        They KNEW what it was like to be the underdog, but rise above it.

        Why did god choose to bring them home?

        I say it’s because they were men after his own heart… and he wanted the world to know how they lived, how they worked, and who they were.

        As Andrew’s wristband states… “To be better”.

        I would like to thank Jerry, my husband, for always standing there beside me.

        My final comments is for my son, Andrew.

        I promise to find the TRUTH… and I will continue that path.
        I promise to live life until I see you again, even though there are days I wake up and I have to fight to breathe.

        ( She takes a moment to collect herself )

        I called you my treasure from the day you were born.
        Now you are hidden from my sight… but never from my heart.
        Thank you.

        ( As she finishes, a reporter asks her what her NAME is )

        ( Deborah Pfingston ): Deborah Pfingston.

        ( Deborah Pfingston leaves the podium and Arizona State Forester Jeff Whitney steps up… Continued next ‘Reply’… )

        Reply

      • Continued…

        ( Arizona State Forester Jeff Whitney, who was appointed by the new )
        ( Arizona Governor Doug Ducey to replace Scott Hunt, takes the podium… )

        +31:12
        ( Jeff Whitney ): Thank you, Deborah. Thank you very much..

        Ya know the… uhm… the reality that two years ago tomorrow we lost nineteen of twenty fine young men on a Hotshot crew that we called our own here in Arizona isn’t lost on any of us.

        We all understand and respect the reality that there’s nothing that can be to replace or restore them to their families.

        Through this process, I’m confident that we will create a fitting memory to those young men.

        Through the process I’ve renewed old friendships, made new ones, and… uh… I think had an opportunity to… uh… be a part of bringing a greater appreciation and awareness of safety to the fireground for these young men who were… uh… incredible examples of the skill and the dedication and the honor that wildland firefighters provide.

        I think it would be… I would be remiss if I didn’t… uh… thank Senator Pierce publicy and Representative Fann for the work that… uh… you all did and are continuing to do. Thank you so much for your support and the support from the Governor’s office… and the AG… uhm…

        This is… uh… difficult… difficult work… but… uh… well… well meant.

        Thank you all… so much… and Pat… thank you.

        ( Reporter ): Hey Jeff. Jeff… could you talk about some of ( these changes ) that the State Forester will adopt from the changes the family was hoping for when you… you guys ( all got together ) ).

        ( Jeff Whitney ): Thank you. It… ya know… in brief… uh… we… uh… as counselor McGroder pointed out there were probably sixty different requests / expectations voiced by the family. We were able to… uh… to… uh… clear the air on some of the things that… uhm… that we do as a standard in the wildland fire… uh… environment… uhm…. we’ve agreed to… uh… increase our… uh… awareness and training and to take some remedial efforts to… uh… find ways to more fully communicate on a regular ongoing basis… particularly under extremely rapid, changing… uh… accelerating fire behavior to assure that this sort of… uh… tragedy does not occur again… not only in Arizona but across… uh… the wildland community worldwide.

        We’ve also… uh… continue to look at… uh… emerging technologies and we’re going to be… uh… uh… adopting some new… uh… opportunities that are out there in the… uh… in the industry in terms of increased resource tracking, monitoring… and… uh.. we’ve gone back through all of our standard policies and practices and I think as… uh… counselor McGroder mentioned, I… I DO have an ability… uh…, in some respect, to carry our desires… our shared desires… uh… forward nationally into the interagency wildland community… uh… and so those are… are some of the things that I’ll be involved with.

        Thank you.

        ( Whitney thought he was done and tries to leave the podium but reporters
        immediately started shouting more questions… )

        +34:31
        ( Reporter 1): What kind of ‘things’?

        ( Reporter 2 ): What kind of things will it take legislative action for? I mean… that was mentioned earlier. You’ve got a limited budget… uh… we all know what that’s about… so… what do you need to take back to the folks up the block here?

        ( Jeff Whitney ): At this point I don’t see that… uh… ya know… there’s any major changes… uhm… ya know… it’s certainly up to the Governor’s office and the legislature to… uhm… ya know… work through some of those opportunities.

        Uhm… we work in an interagency environment and… uh… we work well with our cooperators. I look forward to having all of the support that I’ve had from the Governor’s office and that my organization’s had from the great state of Arizona for… uh… forty-nine years… fifty years coming next year.

        Uh… one final thing I have to say in closing is that… uh… ya know… ah… I could not NOT come to this challenge… and I could not have done it without legal counsel that we had… uhm… both uh… ya know… in the AG’s office and in DOA risk with… uh… Joy and Brock and David… thank you so much… uhm… and Pat and your team.

        Thank you.

        ( Whitney again thinks he’s done and tries to step away from the podium but the reporters again start shouting questions. As Whitney is ‘backing away’ from the podium the live mike captures the what appears to be the following verbal exchange between Jeff Whitney and attorney Pat McGroder… )

        ( Jeff Whitney, to Pat McGroder ): I think you got behind that.
        ( Pat McGroder, to Jeff Whtiney ): Yea.
        ( Jeff Whitney, to Pat McGroder ): Yea. Thank you.
        ( Pat McGroder, to Jeff Whtiney ): I’ll explain.
        ( Jeff Whitney, to Pat McGroder ): Yea.

        +35:47
        ( Reporter 1 ): Excuse me… could you just explain… you talked about the interagency element… uhm ( he realizes Whitney is talking to McGroder and not listening to his question so he stops asking it ).

        ( Reporter 2 ): Mr. Whitney?

        ( Reporter 1 ): Mr. Whitney?

        ( Whitney has finished his background conversation with McGroder and now acknowledges the reporter… )

        ( Jeff Whitney ): Yes sir.

        ( Whitney will take a DEEP breathe and exhale ( heavy sigh ) while Reporter 1 is asking this next question )…

        +35:56
        ( Reporter 1 ): Could you explain… this is what’s leaving me confused is… the changes that you guys are offering in return… promises made… how can they have an impact when you’re part of an interagency system that, for example, doesn’t BELIEVE in transparency? The Forest Service won’t even let its firefighters discuss this… and they conduct investigations that… their very statement about the investigation is “We don’t wanna find out what went wrong”.

        +36:21
        ( Jeff Whitney ): Uh… I think you may mis-characterize the posture and the findings of the Serious Accident Investigation.

        Um… The Wildland fire community is… uh… a large one.

        Uh… I have an opportunity in my position to… uh… carry the… the banner and the interest that all in the wildland community desire in terms of firefighter and public safety… uh… but I think I can bring… as we develop a “Lessons Learned”… uh… document out of this and prepare and provide a staff ride that we’re gonna be able to provide a learning opportunity… uh… to… to take it to that extent.

        Thank you.

        +37:02

        ( Even more reporters have questions now and they start to shout on top of each other as Whitney, again, tries to END the Q/A by stepping away from the podium ).

        ( Reporter 1 ): Family members… two family members…
        ( Reporter 2 ): Just to review… the ADOSH report…

        ( Even as the reporters are directing more questions to the podium… )
        ( Jeff Whitney and Pat McGroder have this exchange between themselves )
        ( and decide they are DONE taking questions… )

        ( Jeff Whitney to Pat McGroder ): I think we’re done.
        ( Pat McGroder to Jeff Whtiney ): Yea.
        ( Jeff Whitney to Pat McGroder ):Yea.
        ( Pat McGroder to Jeff Whitney ): Last one, yea.

        +37:05
        ( Reporter 1 ): This is occurring WITHOUT the sworn testimony of Brendan McDonough… and… are you… are you content with that?

        ( Jeff Whitney to Pat McGroder ): This one’s in your (world). ( It’s about Brendan ).

        +37:13
        ( Pat McGroder ): Uh… I’ll answer that question.

        Uh… at some time… uh… Mr. McDonough may or may not chose to publicy describe what he saw… what he heard that day.

        Uh… Mr. McDonough has an attorney at this point in time.

        But in terms of today… whether it be Mr. McDonough or the Blue Ridge firefighters… the purpose of today was to let YOU know of the enormity of the commitment that State Forester Whitney has made to sit down with our families… at great lengths… at great expense… and answer their questions, describe what happened… whether it be informally or formally… or in the case of a… a ‘ride’.

        So we’re very comfortable in terms of the commitment to the State Forester.

        This litigation was in State Court. It was not… well… it was originally in State Court… it wound up in Federal Court.

        The Arizona… or strike that… the National Forest Service was not a defendant in the case.

        Uh… had the case gone forward, could we have commanded… uh… depositions?… testimony?…

        Absolutely.

        But… echoing Dennis’ thought…

        The IDEA… the IDEA that the Federal Government is withholding information…

        The IDEA that ANYONE would withhold information from these families…

        Uh… is… it… it really speaks to the lack of understanding and empathy and dignity that they should have for these families.

        So… we would PUBLICLY call for the Blue Ridge Mountain folks and the National Forest Service to let their people talk.

        However… at THIS point in time… we’re dealing with families that have suffered the utmost of tragedies… and we are VERY comfortable in terms of the commitments that the State Forester has made to render information to us within HIS purview.

        Mr. McDonough is… uh.. irrelevant to this press conference today.

        +39:28
        ( Reporter 1 ): Well wait… I wanna make sure…

        ( Moderator, talking on top of Reporter 1 ): Last question.

        ( Reporter 1 ): You’re saying… that they PROMISED… based on this… NOW they will open up… which seems a little different than ‘they’ve opened up and now you feel confident’. Your last statement suggests that ‘now that we’ve got a deal… now they’ll give you the rest of the details’. That seems a little bass-ackwards.

        (Pat McGroder): Well… uh… let me straighten your ass out, Howard. Uh…

        ( Loud laughter erupts in the room )

        ( Reporter 1 ): Okay. Tell me where I’m wrong.

        ( Pat McGroder ): Allright.

        First of all.. there ARE published, public reports… on both sides of the ledger.

        State Forester. ADOSH.

        Those reports were generated by interviews, uh… by expert testimony, etcetera, etcetera… and obviously, depending on which lawyer you talk to, those reports were diametrically opposed.

        The problem we have here in terms of whether or not, Howard, we will ever know exactly what happened… those that can tell us… those who can speak to it… are in heaven… and we don’t have an opportunity to talk to them.

        At the time and place, Mr. McDonough decides to talk… obviously we will take that into consideration.

        But the overriding scientific issues… whether it be weather, whether it be communications or lack thereof… whether it be issues regarding Incident Command and things of that nature…

        All of that, in addition to the two reports that have been issued, have been subject, nationwide, to theorists… to conspiracists… to who killed Martin Luther King… and right now, for the families, in THIS litigation, their concern, and their singular concern, was working with Jeff ( Whitney ), and working with Mark ( Brnovich ), and working with Governor Ducey to get in an optimal position so they can have a modicum of peace and understanding.

        And Jeff ( Whitney ) has committed to do that and we are comfortable with Jeff’s commitment to do that.

        +41:49

        Now… whether or not… uh… the Federal Government decides to HIDE again as they did in another one of my cases, fast and furious, we’ll see.

        Uh… but at the end of the day… uh… I am comfortable that to the extent there are FACTS out there that we may or may not know… or a spin on those facts that we may or may not know… that information will be forthcoming.

        Thank you all for coming.

        ( Moderator ): There’s some additional information in the back… if you don’t have the details with ADOSH… back there with the gentleman… back there.Some of us will be stickin’ around. Thank you all for coming.

        ( The open microphone captures the following verbal exchange between Plaintiff’s attorney Pat McGroder and Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich where McGroder admits to Brnovich… “You got me!” during their mano-y-mano “Thank you… NO.. thank YOU” moment on the stage )…

        +42:24
        ( Pat McGroder ): Mark… thanks man.

        ( Attorney General Mark Brnovich ): Thank you, brother. Thanks for everything.

        ( Pat McGroder ): Thank you.

        ( Attorney General Mark Brnovich ): Thank YOU, seriously.

        ( Patrick McGroder ): You GOT me!

        ( Attorney General Mark Brnovich ): ( Laughs… three HA, HA, HA’s ).

        ( The video camera is now turned OFF ).

        END OF PRESS CONFERENCE VIDEO
        ————————————————-

        Reply

  15. I did my best to try and break my Jeep playin’ in the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area for the past few days…but I didn’t.

    “WTKTT said, Actually… am I the only one who is just cynical enough to think that the very reason Ronald Gamble IS now sitting right there in Eric Marsh’s old office is because the Prescott Fire Department thought it would be a good idea to have him there where they can keep their ‘eye’ on him… and continue to CONTROL what he says?

    Is it REALLY just some gigantic coincidence that the guy who MIGHT know who was telling Eric Marsh to “Hurry up” in Yarnell on June 30, 2013 is now coming to work every day and sitting in Eric Marsh’s old office?”

    And I say, Experience taught me not to believe in coincidences.

    I am gratified to see that basically everyone agrees with take on the settlement offer to the families and their attorney, even if they didn’t use as colorful language as I did. I was especially gratified to read that David Turbyfill has basically agreed with what I said, since I know he has followed these events very closely due to his tragic and unimaginable loss.

    Reply

  16. **
    ** STILL NO UPDATES TO “ARIZONA FORESTRY VS. ADOSH” ONLINE CASE FILE

    In just the ‘settlement’ documents that have been released so far we can see clearly that
    there has been correspondence going back and forth during June between the Arizona
    Forestry lawyers and Administrative Law Judge Michael Mosesso…

    …but there have still been NO updates to the public online ALJ Hearing File since
    last May 28, 2015.

    That ALJ Hearing File page is still here…

    https://sites.google.com/site/yarnellhillinformation/home/yarnellhillaljhearingfile

    We can also see from these documents ( that SHOULD have been appearing in the online ALJ Hearing File but have not ) that the ‘Settlement’ was being submitted for approval to Judge Mosesso as early as June 1, 2015.

    So since last May 28, it’s obvious there was a conscious decision to STOP updating the public ALJ Hearing File out of fear the “public” would learn of the settlement before they were ready to announce it with a press conference.

    It will be interesting to see if even now that the ‘settlement’ has been announced… the ALJ Hearing File gets updated with the relevant documents exchanged during June, 2015.

    Arizona LAW requires that the proceedings in an Administrative Judge action be made PUBLIC in as timely a manner as possible. The original ALJ Hearing File was being updated on at least a weekly basis before the ‘blackout’ starting on May 28, 2015.

    There’s also still no word on when the actual ‘settlement’ document between Arizona Forestry an the families of the deceased GM Hotshots will be available for PUBLIC inspection.

    It, too, is SUPPOSED to be a PUBLIC document, but has not yet been released.

    Rumor has it that the Arizona Attorney General’s office has “jumped the gun” and announced the settlement BEFORE actually obtaining ALL the required signed documents ‘accepting’ the settlement from ALL of the plaintiffs in the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits.

    Until they do… then the ‘settlement’ itself is not ‘official’.

    Obviously Deborah Pfingston and Roxanne Warneke were somehow designated ( or volunteered ) to be ‘spokes-persons’ for the plaintiffs at the press conference… but they are actually just TWO of the TWELVE plaintiffs.

    It’s odd that we haven’t heard ( yet ) from the ALL the other TEN plaintiffs… and what THEY think of this lop-sided “settlement” being offered by Arizona Forestry.

    Reply

    • I hope Sonny you come here. I have no way to reach you not by cell or in person. My labs/tests need further immediate attention. Please drop off the dvds if not here to me than at the proper libraries- one says MARICOPA or YAVAPAI/PRESCOTT/SEDONA/ETC.

      I was at the ER until wee early morning today between 3:30-4am. Long evening. You speaking to EMT in the manner you did Sonny was not only inaccurate stating I hiked with a loved one where you said I did. Very not true. I have plenty of in person eye-witness that can stand up for me. You omitting yourself from scenario was very wrong. Also the biggest wrong was you told certain people WHO you spent the day with knowing FULL well we were asked PRIVACY on matter. Nice discernment. Biggest wrong you did to me is state what you did at the cabin; ugly talk. Way wrong. For the record, you are way off base like always.
      Yesterday began with my request as I did and you said “Joy, all is fine…just my teeth/oral pain…let’s go get breakfast”…My Congress neighbors are the first eye-witness that were at the Ranch house restaurant and the owner and workers were the other ones. I would not go to areas unless cleared first because I just won’t- I don’t want no unneeded horseshit. So we go to cabin with someone who knew the 19 very dear—We get into this person’s vehicle and spend time with McCracken’s and mind you I was planning defensible space for Sunday and now I am in yet another God led moment with the very person I always wanted to meet since the fire. Here I am looking at childhood photos of the GMHS and I am thinking here I was angry at this person just recently when the settlement happened and thought this person of all of them I was shocked they signed the settlement. Guess what…I can first hand confirm at least one of the 12 did not sign yet and… well… not to be of any spite… but for the honor and purity and for principle I hope the person never signs. I look forward to helping share the details to this person who mind you NEVER knew who I was or Sonny before yesterday. The person never watched media or anything. Knew of the on the burning edge book from hearsay. When the person sat next to us I was floored the person come in and the timing of service of beverage I joked to the person and than I said “you look familiar” and if I say the reply I would be poor in discernment like Sonny was last night. Yet it began a very lovely healing time. I took note Sonny felt I cut him off but I mean I had so many questions and so for that I apologize Sonny for any interruptions I made when you were attempting to speak. I just had no clue how long this person would sit in front of me. To think I spent the entire day versus just some sit down breakfast moment was indeed so helpful and healing for me. This person is genuine. Nothing like what you spoke to me like last night Sonny. I felt his pain as deep as I feel your pain Sonny of the loss of a loved one. You two share that depth. I was relieved this person has not yet signed and I was grateful for the memory yesterday. I have some items yet to get of mine at the cabin. I just do not deserve the path I am currently on with undeserving words so I have to shift it for health sake. Any doctors I can trust on here? Since last cancer marker/blood labs…besides the old horseshit the new changes are…my platelets are way too low, my neutrophil abnormally high (a high neutrophil count can be caused by cancer spreading in the body which explains the follow up on bone marrow), abnormally low lymphocyte count and I have a very junked up congested spleen/lymphatic system so that does not help., abnormally low eosinophil count caused by intoxication excessive production of cortisol (a steroid produced naturally in the body)., I barely have sugars unless I visit McCracken’s so that did not make sense to have high glucose. Electrolyte imbalance and very low calcium was drastic since last labs. Strange because I take supplements due to endurance hikes and medical history so strange to see that change. Low alkaline phosphatase was another new strange low…The strange thing as I am trying to gather focus and thoughts EMT lady who recognized me is correct in her assessment on scene because my vitals are always perfect or way low not abnormal on the high side and as a frequent hiker she is right on her statement. To have the higher pulse and shortness of breath and lose control of areas…sucks…I did find it funny my labs for the first time had results that this ER doctor had no clue who I am because they tested me for amphetamines/barbiturates/benzodiazepines/cocaine/methadone/opiates/oxycodone/pcp/tca/thc and it came back NEGATIVE. Really? duh. I never touch anything but my hershey bar with almonds…I do not have substance vices just side kick one and that stems back to being around at a young age of a serial killer. If my husband was working I either had my female workout pals or my male shopping or movie folks or hiking or archaeologist fun or bicycling but Sonny was my first hiking pal where I spent 24/7 moments trailing and pioneering all over Arizona and caves. He was my first to know in my life someone twenty four hours a day…you see my husband and I worked odd schedules that even him and I never saw another much. My urobilinogen borders abnormal. What was strange was the tearing/rupturing effect of the throat tumor when projectile vomiting with blood for hours on end until I FINALLY okayed the Zolfran into IV. My husband passes out on stuff like blood and vomit like I was so he walked out of room while Wendy helped me. I could not take the rough vomiting plus not feeling like ME but I was hard headed and waited too long because I don’t like any pharmaceuticals . I got a new copy of my brain but not able to open up on my desktop so take it to my chiropractor who has program to view- After my recent falls I was relieved to see no fractures or breaks or dislocations. Soft tissue concerns are much better than broken bones….What what was funny as hell was there is a stern direct quote statement and I do not even work but it says “Rest at home.” in regards to if I am able to regards to activities to work and or school. So I reckon no job yet and no school for me. The bacteria in blood, the bone marrow, the lymphatics, the tumors and the locations those are my main focus right now. Thank you again Marti Reed.

      I have no clue how much an ambulance ride or ER visit will put me back or under quite yet.
      I am sure I could of used an ambulance ride many other times but I could not function last night that it scared me—when I pee and poop without brain function acknowledgement and I cannot gather voices and what’s going on around me…time for me to be seen.

      I have something that was said in private but it is in regards to Dickmans book. The accounts of 65% of the book are not confirmed with the loved ones and are just the views of Donut who has not yet been brave or bold or do the right thing and speak up to these loved ones about that day and 2 prior hotshots accounts make that book—but no way the definite account. Do not BELIEVE everything you read in the NARRATIVE book of Dickman’s. Now, his account on us matches the given SAIR notes on the hikers so it now time for me to go to my friend’s home who has all the information kept there for safe keeping vs. my home and pull out the sound recording to send the SAIT people to show just alone the interview notes on us is not complete and inaccurate so Dickman only went by the notes he read—not his fault—yet tsk tsk tsk to the ones who did our interview. Not right.

      Not right at all. Today I am weak. Not doing a darn thing. Doing what they said- rest. I gave this person yesterday one of the glass pieces that Sonny turned into a purple 19 arrowhead.

      Reply

  17. **
    ** IN A VIDEO INTERVIEW ON THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY…
    **
    ** AUTHOR KYLE DICKMAN SAYS EVERYONE JUST HAS TO
    ** BE READY FOR MORE TRAGEDIES.

    Some media outlets are still only now getting around posting their VIDEOS from the second anniversary to their public YouTube accounts.

    EnGlobal News, a news feed for the FOX TV network, actually had an on-camera prime-time interview on the day of the second anniversary of the Yarnell tragedy with none other than author ( and former Hotshot ) Kyle Dickman.

    That VIDEO interview with Dickman ended up saved to EnGlobal’s own public Youtube page…

    Youtube account: EnGlobal News US
    Yourube video title: Two years after Yarnell Hill fire, what can be learned?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fas_5AaFOhc

    Here is a full transcript of this on-camera interview with Dickman…
    ————————————————————————————
    ( Reporter ): Today marks TWO years since the Yarnell Hill fire killed a team of elite firefighters and we know you’ll remember this story well. The fire burned in Northern Arizona. Nineteen firefighters, known as ‘Hotshots’, got caught behind a wall of flames and despite their best efforts to survive, they all perished in the blaze.

    What have we learned from that disaster now, TWO years later?

    Kyle Dickman is a former Hotshot. He’s author of a new book “On the Burning Edge, A fateful fire and the men who fought it”.

    Kyle… it’s great to have you on the program and this story is one that I know really resonated with our viewers because it was so heartbreaking and so horrific to see this elite group of guys die trying to save others.

    Talk to us a little bit about what you were able to learn over the last TWO years.

    Why DID they die?

    ( Kyle Dickman ): Well… they died trying to protect the town of Yarnell… and, I think, one of the biggest takeaways in reporting the book was that I think we have to be ready to see even MORE fatalities like this. I mean… you were just talking about all the fires that are burning. Southern California… in Northern California… I mean… Alaska’s burning.

    NOTE: At this point, +1:07 into the video, the background video being shown is that piece of ABC15 ‘Air 15’ Helicopter footage shot on the afternoon of June 30, 2013, which clearly shows the fire in the background that would eventually enter the box canyon and kill the GM Hotshots.

    ( Kyle Dickman ): When all these big fires start a lot of them are burning closer to houses… and so as we continue to see firefighters protecting these towns I think the sad truth is we have to continue to ready ourself for… uhm… more tragedies like Yarnell Hill.

    ( Reporter ): So I wanna talk to you a little bit about how we can do BETTER, in just a moment, but bring us back to that day two years ago.

    WHAT happened to these firefighters?
    WHY did they get caught in this fire?

    ( Kyle Dickman ): Right… so… so… what happened is a thunderstorm developed over the fire and it sort of produced these thirty and forty mile per hour winds and it rapidly changed direction and started running toward the town of Yarnell.

    Uhm… the Hotshots were in what’s known as “the black”, which is the already burned fuel and it’s basically the safest place that anyone can be on a fire.

    And… uh… as they watched this fire face toward Yarnell they made the decision to get up and leave the safety of the black, presumably to help protect the houses.

    Uhm… ultimately, of course, they didn’t make it all the way back to the homes and… uh… they were caught and tragically killed enroute.

    ( Reporter ): Now.. there have been a series of different reports over the last two years about WHO made the call to move these firefighters and WHO is to blame… because, of course, in stories like this, everyone’s looking for that. An ANSWER to ‘explain the unexplainable’, virtually, but Kyle… what did YOU learn in reporting about this story?

    IS there someone to blame here?

    ( Kyle Dickman ): I mean I think you can blame… we… we can certainly lay blame on the Incident… uhm… on the Superintendent of the Hotshot Crew. His name was Eric Marsh. It was, ultimately, his decision to move the men… uhm… ya know… the truth is that fire was incredibly explosive. Nature was doing things to that… that blaze that… that were pretty exceptional and… uhm… ya know… I think that… that really these men died… uh… uh… because of the way fires are burning today… and so… uhm… but I guess if we… if we have to lay blame… maybe we blame Eric Marsh?

    ( Reporter ): And we certainly don’t… you know… it’s not about finger pointing as much as it’s being able to look back and reflect on it and figure out how we can actually do better.

    ( Kyle Dickman ): That’s right.

    ( Reporter ): You mention these… these fires that we’ve seen… and… they’re… I mean… they’re… they’re also taking homes and threatening lives as well. It’s taxpayer dollars that are going, whether or not you’re in a… in a state where the fire is burning or not… being invested to try and make sure that we fight these fires and keep them away from homes.

    What can we be doing BETTER?

    ( Kyle Dickman ): Well… I think… ya know… right now we’re spendin’ 4.7 billion dollars most years between Federal, County and State… uh… firefighting agencies and I think what we NEED to be doing is spending millions PREPARING for fires and then millions… uh… fighting the fires that really need to be fought.

    And those are the blazes like Yarnell Hill, ultimately.
    Those that are burning very close to towns.

    But… uhm… I think that… that… solution to the problem is not to fight ALL fires, but to help… ya know… prepare for them.

    ( Reporter ): Let me ask you about the fire shelters. I know you have experience as a firefighter… also spent a year as a Hotshot as well. Uhm… we first learned about fire… uh… shelters probably during this story, because these were what looks like a sleeping bag that these firefighters put themselves in trying to protect themselves from the… the blaze. It… it… obviously didn’t work.

    How good is the technology that is given to firefighters to protect them?

    ( Kyle Dickman ): Well… I think that’s a good question. I mean… I think that current fire shelters… obviously there’s… there’s a limit to what they can do and we saw that limit at Yarnell Hill. Uhm… they’re not actually designed to withstand direct contact with flames, ah… so the Forest Service is going back and is committed to redesigning these shelters to make something that’s… that can withstand higher temperatures.

    But… uh… you have to keep in mind that these guys are walking, carrying 40 to 50 pound packs… they may hike 12 miles a day… they’re… ya know… they’re running chainsaws, they’re cutting line all day, so… uh… they have design these shelters to be… to be very lightweight… and, ultimately, I don’t think you CAN create a shelter that will… uh… EVER withstand direct contact with flames… so…

    ( Reporter ): Right… right… the goal is never to be that close, really, to the fire… as dangerous as it is.

    ( Kyle Dickman ): It’s not. That’s right. Yea.

    ( Reporter ): Kyle… just a quick final question for you. Since you spent time as a firefighter and as a Hotshot… what was this story like reporting it out… and being so close to this story.

    How did it impact YOU?

    ( Kyle Dickman ): Well… I mean… obviously it was devastating story, and especially… for me… I didn’t know any of these men personally before I started the book, but… uhm… it was impossible for me not to see… ya know… myself in a lot of them and also a lot of my closest friends… so… ya know… it… it definitely took a toll.

    ( Reporter ): And it’s certainly something, again, as we watch some of the footage from this big story that WE remember well.. and we’ll remember their families today because, surely, for them, this story isn’t over.

    Kyle… great to have you on the program.
    Best of luck with the book, we really appreciate it.

    ( Kyle Dickman ): Thanks for havin’ me.
    ————————————————————————————————–

    As far as this statement of Dickman’s goes…

    ( Kyle Dickman ): When all these big fires start a lot of them are burning closer to houses… and so as we continue to see firefighters protecting these towns I think the sad truth is we have to continue to ready ourself for… uhm… more tragedies like Yarnell Hill.

    I think someone has neglected to tell Dickman that the laywers from the Arizona Attorney General’s office that have been assigned to defend Arizona Forestry against the Yarnell Fire ‘Property Damage’ lawsuits ( with over 160+ plaintiffs ) have already found the ‘answer’ to this problem.

    The lawyers told a Judge that Arizona Foresty ( and everyone who ever works or contracts with them ) does not EVER have even ONE single atomic molecule of duty and/or responsibility to EVER be ‘protecting town’, or ‘houses’, or ‘people’.

    And the Judge AGREED with them.

    That means in the future ( and indeed, in the past, such as in Yarnell itself ) if ANY firefighter in Arizona is EVER hurt or injured trying to protect a home or a person… then they were/are AUTOMATICALLY committing gross negligence.

    It means they were ALREADY doing something the Arizona Forestry lawyers have said they were/are NEVER supposed to be doing at all.

    Problem solved?

    Reply

    • Followup…

      Just this morning, Bill Gabbert over at Wildfire Today felt compelled to write a posting of his own regarding this FOX news on-camera interview with Kyle Dickman.

      His article ( and the comments being left ) amount to a lot of “who is throwing who under what bus”… but the person. actually being thrown under a moving vehicle seems to be Kyle Dickman himself.

      The first comment left is absolutely scathing with regards to former Hotshot Dickman and his ‘book’… and it’s unusual to see Gabbert allow a comment like that to appear. He usually just DELETES comments like that.

      Here is Gabbert’s post about the Dickman interview…

      http://wildfiretoday.com/2015/07/06/interview-with-author-of-book-about-yarnell-hill-fire/#comments

      Reply

  18. **
    ** DAVID TURBYFILL COMMENTS ON SETTLEMENT ANNOUNCEMENT

    There are still articles ( and interviews ) ‘popping’ with regards to the recently announced ‘settlement’ agreement in just the ‘wrongful death’ suits that were only being handled as one ‘enjoined’ case by attorney Patrick McGroder, who was caught by an open microphone at the end of the Settlement Press Conference itself telling his opponent, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich “You GOT me!”.

    This one appeared today in the ‘Mojave Daily News’ and includes comments from David Turbyfill, the father of deceased GM Hotshot Travis Turbyfill.

    The Mojave Daily News
    Article Title: Yarnell lawsuit ends
    Published: Sunday, July 5, 2015 12:26 am
    http://www.mohavedailynews.com/news/yarnell-lawsuit-ends-with-little-cash/article_29bd8106-22e7-11e5-9f43-1ba162dd31ea.html

    From the article…
    ——————————————————————————-
    Dave Turbyfill, whose son Travis died in the blaze, said he’s happy the families got something but it wasn’t enough to prompt real changes. He said he wasn’t a party to the lawsuit because he doesn’t believe that the state Forestry Division can force changes within the firefighting community.

    The settlement, he noted, was only a tiny fraction of what they originally sought.

    “It was a save face for the families, for the attorneys involved,” he said.
    “It was either get that or get nothing.”

    Turbyfill said he was disappointed there were no real answers to what happened.
    ——————————————————————————-

    In addition to Mr. Turbyfill’s comments… the article contains some additional ‘opinions’ coming from an attorney named Dwane Cates, a Phoenix trial attorney.

    He thinks the settlement was just way for everyone involved to “save face”.

    Dwane Cates said…
    ——————————————————————————-
    “You have to prove that there were just red flags everywhere and everybody ignored the dangers,” said Dwane Cates, a Phoenix trial attorney.

    Instead, the settlement allows both sides to essentially have a win. The state paid less than 1 percent of what the families originally sought — and avoided the public relations black eye that would have come from trying to beat widows and orphans in the courthouse. The families got a small amount of cash and a promise by the state Forestry Division to make safety changes.

    “I believe that the settlement probably was kind of a win-win because the firefighters had a long row to hoe to even get to the point to where they could win,” Cates said. “And No. 2, I don’t think the state of Arizona necessarily wanted to win, because that would have been a PR disaster if they had won in court and the firefighters got nothing.”
    ——————————————————————————-

    The settlement was NOT a real ‘WIN’ for the families of the Hotshots..

    It was FULL of compromises and just a one-sided settlement that favors Arizona Forestry.

    Even their own attorney, Pat McGroder, appears to have told his opponent Mark Brnovich at the end of the press conference that Brnovich “got the better of him” during these settlement negotiations.

    Since it really WAS never about the ‘money’ at all… and compensatory damages are simply a requirement as part of the filing for a ‘wrongful death’ suit… the REAL WIN for the families would have been to not accept ANY settlement… and just let the 12 wronful death cases proceed to trial.

    Even if Arizona Forestry prevails in the end… the TRUTH about what happened would very likely come out DURING any court proceeding regarding what happened that entire weekend in Yarnell… and that, itself, would be the VICTORY the families were ( and are still ) looking for.

    Reply

    • We could have given them about 20 RED FLAGS.
      It isn’t hard to find them if you pull a few out of the SAIT. And the past two years here .
      JD has mentioned quite a few in his Articles.. All Very provable and significant.

      On thing we do know McDonough Talking to Willis and things he told him was enough for Willis to Run to the City Attorney and the Both of them immediately go directly to the State Attorney General That in its self says a lot about the Information being quite a revelation.

      Hopefully Mrs. McKee will get a Court hearing or McDonough will hear from God and revile all to the Families and in his Book. One can only hope if we want all the Answers and Lesions Learned..

      If DICKMAN thinks lessons learned are that we are going to have more Fatalities he has totally missed the point. That is a lesson the Fire community never wants to repeat and one that says Wild Land Fire Fighters will take chances to save structures—- Which fly’s in the face of all the Safety Training the 10 and 18. No structure is worth ONE Fire Fighter’s life a thousand acres more burned is not worth ONE FF Life. The Government lets Thousands of Acres burn to reduce fuel— You should do the same when it is a matter of Safety.
      Get out of the way and let it Burn

      Stay Safe My Brothers and Sisters No One Needs To Die.

      Reply

  19. **
    ** KYLE DICKMAN ANSWERED QUESTIONS ON JULY 2, 2015

    Just a few days ago, on July 2, ‘Inside Climate News’ magazine published an article online that contains a Question/Answer session with Kyle Dickman.

    Kyle Dickman is the author of that book that came out recently called “The Burning Edge”, which the publishers are trying to (unbelievably) ‘pawn off’ as ‘the definitive account of the Yarnell Hill Fire’. It is no such thing.

    No great revelations in this interview with Dickman… but he DOES confirm that most of what he printed about what it was like to ‘ride’ with Granite Mountain came from Brendan McDonough and just TWO other former GM Hotshots ( Brandon Bunch and Renan Packer ).

    Inside Climate News
    Article Title: The Deadlier Scourge of Wildfires in an Age of Climate Change
    A Q&A with author Kyle Dickman, whose book, On the Burning Edge, explains
    why wildfire seasons are so bad and getting worse.
    Published: July 2, 2015 – by Katherine Bagley
    http://insideclimatenews.org/news/02072015/deadly-scourge-wildfires-climate-change-yarnell-hill-fire

    From the article
    ———————————————————-
    CN: The book is incredibly descriptive, reconstructing the Granite Mountain Hotshots’ 2013 wildfire season and the personal lives of the team. What was the reporting and research process like?

    Dickman: It was sad. I spent a lot of time with the families, of course. In the book, there is Brendan McDonough, who is the sole survivor of the Yarnell Hill fire. But there are two other sources who were critical in telling this story of the crew before the fire: Brandon Bunch and Renan Packer, who both left weeks before the tragedy. I spent a lot of time talking to those guys, figuring out where did they go, what happened on the fire line, the sort of everyday stuff. I love that. That’s the stuff I think was exciting to report because I got to see these guys, who I spent so much time thinking about, alive in some sense.

    What I wanted to do with each one of them was profile them so history won’t just remember them at the 19 guys who died, but as individuals. That was really what I was trying to do with the book.

    ICN: At the end of the book, you still didn’t find out what exactly happened that day on Yarnell Hill with those 19 men. Was that frustrating?

    Dickman: Maybe in the beginning that was frustrating. When hotshot groups get together, they still ask that question. Why did they leave the black [the already burnt, and therefore safe zone]?

    But I think, for me, I don’t think we’re ever going to know, but that doesn’t necessarily bother me.

    Not to diminish all the other factors in play, but I think mostly it was human factors, and that is why if we continue to fight fires, we have to continue to expect people to die because people are fallible. People are going to make mistakes. In an environment as dangerous and dynamic as a wildfire, the cost of those mistakes can be deadly.
    ———————————————————-

    It’s more than a little disengenuous for Kyle Dickman to pronounce that it will never be known WHY Granite Mountain left the safe black when he, himself ( as an author of a book about the tragedy ) barely lifter a finger to even TRY and find out what really happened.

    As an author ( with most likely an advance from his publisher to be working on this book ), he could have interviewed any number of people who were both participants and witnesses to the tragedy… including MANY people who were right there in the thick of it and have NEVER been interviewed by anyone… investigators included.

    He did NOT.

    He didn’t even bother to talk, himself, with Sonny (Tex) Gilligan and Joy Collura. He just regurgitated (false) statements attributed to them that were printed in the SAIR.

    He was also in a position to try and run some of the ‘mysteries’ to ground such as WHO Eric Marsh was ‘reporting’ to at 4:27 PM as recorded in the YARNELL-GAMBLE video, or what dozer operator Paul Morin STILL knows about what really happened that day, or any of the other ‘known mysteries’ surrounding the afternoon of June 30, 2013 in Yarnell.

    He did NOT.

    Nice work, Kyle.

    Reply

    • Typos above. Sorry.

      Paragraph above should have read like this…

      It’s more than a little disingenuous for Kyle Dickman to pronounce that it will never be known WHY Granite Mountain left the safe black when he, himself ( as an author of a book about the tragedy ) barely lifted a finger to even TRY and find out what really happened.

      Reply

  20. **
    ** NEW PUBLIC PHOTOS OF THE YARNELL HILL FIRE
    **
    ** FOUND BY JOY A. COLLURA

    Joy… thank you for finding those ‘new’ photos of the Yarnell Hill Fire on the public photos service known as FLICKR.

    These are all AMAZING photographs that I don’t believe many people have ever seen.

    They were ALL taken between 9:07 PM and 10:12 PM on Saturday night, June 29, 2013, in the hours just after the fire had ‘escaped’ from Arizona Forestry’s ICT4 Russ Shumate and started burning along the Weaver ridgeline to the north and the northeast.

    The were all taken with a telephoto lens from various vantage points in Yarnell.

    These photos show more CLEARLY than any others I’ve ever seen that were taken after dark on Saturday night how it was that fire burned north along the Weaver ridge… and how it burned DOWN the drainages near what would become known as the ‘anchor point’ that Granite Mountain was working on the next day… and how all that ‘safe black’ they would find on Sunday morning in that ‘anchor point’ area was actually created.

    It also shows clearly the fire that created the ‘slopover’ to the Congress side.

    These are INVALUABLE for anyone studying how the fire ESCAPED on Saturday and the progress it was making after the firefighting operations ceased on Saturday as the sun set.

    They clearly show how the ‘escaped’ fire burned north on the ridge AND was burning DOWN the drainages as it encountered them, even though it was nighttime.

    There are valuable “Lessons to Learn” just looking at these photos alone.

    These pictures show CLEARLY the ‘nightmare scenario’ that was apparently NOT in the mind of Arizona Forestry’s ICT4 Russ Shumate as he planned his Initial Attack on Saturday and only sent 6 men up there to make sure the fire was contained before dark THAT DAY.

    Here’s how to view these PUBLIC photos…

    FLICKR Username: jeremyii

    Direct link to his ‘page 3’ of PUBLIC photos containing 7 Yarnell Hill Fire photos…

    https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/jeremyii/page3

    NOTE: His ‘page 4’ contains one more Yarnell Hill Fire photo named “090”.
    Just hit the ‘Next Page’ button on his page 3 to see that photo on his ‘page 4’

    There is no GPS data embedded in the original photos.

    The time/date information IS embedded in the photos and appears to be accurate.

    The ‘Device’ information is also embedded in the photo.

    ALL of these photos were taken with the following camera…

    Camera Make: Canon
    Camera Model Name: Canon EOS REBEL T1i

    Here’s the time/date detail embedded in all of the photos…
    —————————————————————————————-
    On page 4 ( of 8 pages )…

    091 – Date/Time Original: 2013:06:29 22:12:26 ( 10:12:26 PM )

    On page 3 ( of 8 pages )…

    090 – Date/Time Original: 2013:06:29 22:12:14 ( 10:12:14 PM )
    055 – Date/Time Original: 2013:06:29 21:56:15 ( 09:56:15 PM )
    049 – Date/Time Original: 2013:06:29 21:53:44 ( 09:53:44 PM )
    043 – Date/Time Original: 2013:06:29 21:51:59 ( 09:51:59 PM )
    039 – Date/Time Original: 2013:06:29 21:29:02 ( 09:29:02 PM )
    031 – Date/Time Original: 2013:06:29 21:23:55 ( 09:23:55 PM )
    026 – Date/Time Original: 2013:06:29 21:07:15 ( 09:07:15 PM )
    —————————————————————————————-

    NOTE: When dealing with photos on public FLICKR accounts… the trick to getting an actually ‘original copy’ of the photo complete with all the EXIF data still embedded in it is to just choose a photo from someone’s album and then look for the “More information about this photo” link. Click that… then look for the “View all sizes” link. 9 times out of 10… on the next page that appears FLICKR has an option to ‘View Original Size’. Once you do that you can then right-click the image and then pick the “Save Image As” option. That saved image will usually be a copy of the same photo that was uploaded to FLICKR complete with the original EXIF metadata still embedded in the photo.

    Once again… THANK YOU to Joy A. Collura for ‘finding’ these IMPORTANT (public) photos.

    Reply

    • And when I say the photos “CLEARLY’ show what the fire was doing… I’m not kidding.

      These HIGH RESOLUTION photos taken by FLICKR user JeremyII all have a resolution of 4,752 pixels wide by 3,168 pixels high.

      In some of the photos… INDIVIDUAL BOULDERS can be made out up on the ridge, illuminated by the light of the fire itself.

      Joy… a QUESTION for you.

      Do you know who FLICKR User “JeremyII” actually is?

      The reason I ask is that we are seeing the original sequential photo numbers that were stamped on the photos with the Canon EOS Rebel T1i camera… but there are obviously a number of sequential photos MISSING from the FLICKR page.

      Again… here’s the ‘summary’ of the photos including filenames.

      Some of the filenames are in sequence ( like both 090 and then 091 ), but the rest of them obviosuly indicate there are MOR photos in-between the numbers.

      Matter of fact… there’s an indication there might be more than THIRTY other photos in-between photo number 055 taken at 9:56 PM… and then photo 090 taken 16 minutes later at 10:12 PM…

      091 – Date/Time Original: 2013:06:29 22:12:26 ( 10:12:26 PM )
      090 – Date/Time Original: 2013:06:29 22:12:14 ( 10:12:14 PM )
      055 – Date/Time Original: 2013:06:29 21:56:15 ( 09:56:15 PM )
      049 – Date/Time Original: 2013:06:29 21:53:44 ( 09:53:44 PM )
      043 – Date/Time Original: 2013:06:29 21:51:59 ( 09:51:59 PM )
      039 – Date/Time Original: 2013:06:29 21:29:02 ( 09:29:02 PM )
      031 – Date/Time Original: 2013:06:29 21:23:55 ( 09:23:55 PM )
      026 – Date/Time Original: 2013:06:29 21:07:15 ( 09:07:15 PM )

      The sequential photo filenames 026 through 091 indicate that “JeremyII” actually took at least 65 ( SIXTY FIVE ) photos between that 1 hour and 6 minute time period on Saturday night, June 29, 2013, between 9:07 PM and 10:12 PM.

      Only EIGHT of them ended up being posted to that public FLICKR page.

      Reply

  21. Reply to Bob Powers post on July 3, 2015 at 3:15 pm

    >> Bob Powers said…
    >>
    >> WTKTT You need to reread the above news release
    .>> Noted ___ When all litigations conclude including appeals then the
    >> State will discuss the information with the Families.

    Yes. You are right. Thank you.

    The article reporting about the remaining litigation on behalf of Marcia McKee, written by Nigel Duara of the “Daily Pilot”, DOES say that.

    Again.. that article is here…

    The Daily Pilot ( covering Newport and Costa-Mesa, California )
    Firefighters settlement in deadly wildfire includes dad of former Costa Mesa man
    Published: June 30, 2015, 5:42 p.m – By Nigel Duara
    http://www.dailypilot.com/news/tn-dpt-me-0701-mckee-settlement-20150630,0,7791868.story

    Actually… the article has a mysterious bit of detail in it as well with regards to
    this supposed “8 hour meeting”… and what it specifically says is the following…
    —————————————————————————————
    A common complaint from families of the dead Hotshots was that state officials did not fully explain what caused the tragedy and whether it could have been avoided. The Forestry Division agreed that when all litigation concludes, including appeals, it will have an eight-hour meeting with the families and consultants to review information about the fire and answer questions, with lawyers present.
    ————————————————————————

    BTW: The “Daily Pilot” is NOT an Arizona newspaper. It’s mailing address is 10540 Talbert Ave., Suite 300 Fountain Valley, California, 92708, and the paper covers the Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, California areas. Marcia McKee lives in the Costat Mesa area so this was a “local story” for the “Dailly Pilot”.

    There is no reason to doubt this “Daily Pilot” article.

    The QUESTION would be… how do they know what they just printed including the specific detail that this Q/A session will be an “8 hour meeting”? ( Just ONE? ).

    AFAIK… a copy of the actual settlement agreement where kind of detail might be specified still hasn’t been “made available” to the press or to the public yet… and there is actually no good explanation why that is so… or WHEN it WILL be made available.

    Perhaps the “Daily Pilot” actually got that bit of detail from Mr. Scott McKee Sr., who WAS part of the 12 combined wrongful-death cases that just settled?

    Does the ACTUAL (written) settlement agreement actually say “not until all litigation has ceased” and does it actually (specifically) say there will be just this ONE “8 hour meeting”? If so… I wonder what ELSE it says?

    What I was going on was what attorney Pat McGroder said during the Settlement Press Conference the other day.

    Attorney Pat McGroder is the one who told the public, in the press conference, that as part of the settlement Arizona Forestry has PROMISED to (quote) “sit down with the families and answer their questions”. And not just ONCE, either.

    Mr. McGroder makes NO MENTION of there being any constraints or conditions regarding these “sit downs” and the impression he was giving everyone was that these Q/A sessions could now take place IMMEDIATELY.

    Here is exactly what attorney Pat McGroder said about this
    in the Settlement Press Conference…
    ————————————————————————
    +37:13
    ( Pat McGroder ): I’ll answer that question.

    Uh… at some time… uh… Mr. McDonough may or may not chose to publicy
    describe what he saw… what he heard that day.

    Uh… Mr. McDonough has an attorney at this point in time.

    But in terms of today… whether it be Mr. McDonough or the Blue Ridge
    firefighters… the purpose of today was to let YOU know of the enormity
    of the committment that State Forester Whitney has made to sit down
    with our families… at great lengths… at great expense… and answer
    their questions, describe what happened… whether it be informally
    or formally… or in the case of a… a ‘ride’.

    So we’re very comfortable in terms of the committment to the State Forester.
    ————————————————————————

    So there was the PERFECT ( and the APPROPRIATE ) opportunity for attorney Pat McGroder to inform everyone that one of the (apparent) CONDITONS of this part of the settlement agreement is that Arizona Forestry will still be REFUSING to open and honestly “answer any questions” about the fire and what happened… and what they may know that has never been made public or supplied via valid FOIA requests… only when all litigations and appeals have ceased.

    But McGroder obviously chose to NOT mention THAT part of the settlement.

    >> Bob Powers also said…
    >>
    >> I would conclude that means the Mckee Law suit and any appeals.

    Yes. No other way to read that, really.

    If what the “Daily Pilot” is reporting is true then we have to also assume that means any/all appeals that stem from the unrelated “Property Damage” lawsuits filed against Arizona Forestry.

    Reply

    • Followup…

      By ‘unrelated’… I simply meant that the Property Damage lawsuits are NOT ‘wrongful-death’ lawsuits.

      The cases obviously ARE related in that the same long list of Arizona Forestry employees and contractors could still be called to the witness stand as easily in the “Property Damage” suits as they could in any “wrongful death” proceeding.

      So even though the “Daily Pilot” article does not specifically mention the ‘Property Damage’ suits… if the actual recently-signed settlement document does contain specific language about “We will still answer NO questions from the families of the deceased until there is NO litigation or appeals still pending”… then it stands to reason that is talking about the “Property Damage” suits ( and the 160+ plaintiffs ) as well.

      Reply

      • Let me also say that I think it’s strange we have to be reading articles being published by a small local newspaper in Costa Mesa, California, in order for some of these very important details about this historic legal settlement to be emerging.

        I’m VERY curious about this specific “8 hour meeting” thing. ( ONE time only? ).

        It sits in direct contradiction of what attorney Pat McGroder seemed to be saying ( during the Settlement Press Conference ).the families were/are expecting from Arizona State Forester Jeff Whitney.

        Reply

        • As usual some additional good Information. I had to read the article twice to realize what it was saying. Would this end up a private release of information and the public not be privy to it?????
          More strange things going on here. Along with every thing else we have gone thru in Search of the truth. now we get hung out again for how ever long the State wants to keep the Families on a string.

          Reply

          • Bob Powers says

            Reply to Bob Powers post on July 3, 2015 at 8:47 pm

            >> Bob Powers said…
            >>
            >> Would this end up a private release of information
            >> and the public not be privy to it?????

            Good question.

            Totally unaddressed by attorney Patrick McGroder or Arizona State Forester Jeff Whitney during this one-and-only press conference about this historic ‘settlement’.

            Something tells me that even when we finally see the actual written settlement document between Arizona Forestry and the 12 families… it won’t even SAY whether the information that’s (supposedly) going to be revealed in this (supposed) 8 hour Q/A session is meant to be private or public.

            Arizona Forestry could give a rats ass what the public ever knows.

            The ‘settlement’ was all about making the families happy… or at least satisified. Happy is the wrong word. There is NOTHING ‘Happy’ about maybe finally learning the TRUTH about why your loved ones burned to death working for Arizona Forestry.

            >> Bob Powers also said…
            >>
            >> More strange things going on here. Along with every thing
            >> else we have gone thru in Search of the truth. now we get
            >> hung out again for how ever long the State wants to
            >> keep the Families on a string.

            There MAY even be a clause in the “contract” that just got signed ( and make no mistake… that’s what a settlement document is ) which states that the families are NEVER supposed to reveal ANYTHING they learn from Arizona Forestry from this day forward… or they have to give the money back.

            I just wonder WHEN there is going to be a PUBLIC copy of this actual ‘contract’ the family members just signed.

            There isn’t even a good explanation why it wasn’t made available already along with the other PUBLIC settlement documents.

            Remember… this is not Exxon Mobile doing the ‘settling’ here.

            It’s a 100 percent taxpayer funded PUBLIC agency.

            Reply

  22. **
    ** SOME OF THE ACTUAL SETTLEMENT DOCUMENTS NOW ONLINE

    FYI… InvestigativeMEDIA has now published 3 of the actual ‘settlement’ documents.

    They are available via this IM page…

    InvestigativeMEDIA
    Article Title: Supporting legal documents to Yarnell Hill Fire settlement released
    Published: July 1, 2015 By John Dougherty
    http://www.investigativemedia.com/supporting-legal-documents-to-yarnell-hill-fire-settlement-released/

    From the IM article…
    ————————————————————————————
    InvestigativeMedia is posting the settlement agreement, settlement agreement and order and the revised citation issued by the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health against the Arizona Forestry Division in connection with the June 30, 2013 deaths of 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots while fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire.

    InvestigativeMedia will post the settlement agreement between ADOSH, the Forestry Division and the 12 families of the deceased hotshots when it becomes available. One remaining lawsuit brought by the mother of Granite Mountain Hotshot Grant McKee remains in litigation.
    ————————————————————————————

    Reply

    • >> John Dougherty said…
      >>
      >> One remaining lawsuit brought by the mother of Granite Mountain Hotshot
      >> Grant McKee remains in litigation.

      Marcia McKee was the first to file a ‘wrongful death’ suit on behalf of her son Grant… and I hope the lousy settlement the other family members just decided to agree to convinces her that she should NOT even enter ( or continue ) any settlement talks with the defendants.

      Win or lose… the BEST thing Marcia McKee could do is simply let her civil action proceed to trial.

      There only has to be ONE active court case in order for any number of participants and witnesses to be “called to the stand” and have to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”.

      Even the family members who just agreed to this lopsided settlement said at the settlement press conference itself that “there is still work to do”… and that they intend to still continue to find out what REALLY happened that weekend in Yarnell.

      There are people that were involved with the tragedy who will obviously ONLY tell what they know if they are FORCED to do so.

      So I hope Marcia McKee realizes that… and also realizes that she alone now has one of the only remaining legal instruments to finally get some of these people to tell the truth.

      Even if she LOSES the proceeding… most ( or perhaps all ) of what still needs to be discovered has a good chance of simply coming out DURING the trial… and that will be the best thing she could possibly cause to happen for ALL the families of the fallen.

      Reply

      • As I wrote downstream:
        ———————————————

        “”There’s a lot of things that had been withheld and lied about, and you cannot lie to somebody about how their child died,” said Scott McKee, whose son, Grant, was killed on the mountain that day.

        McKee believes state forestry officials know more than they have disclosed about what happened.”

        http://www.kpho.com/story/25909911/state-keeping-yarnell-hill-fire-secrets-say-critics

        This actually fits in with the conversation below about Investigations™ in the era of “Lessons Learned™”.

        So, I guess what Scott McKee said “you cannot lie to somebody about how their child died,” is really about all I have to say.

        Except for this addition:

        I wonder where Scott McKee went
        —————————————–

        Apparently he’s still there. In spite of everything. We may have an actual hero here.

        Thank you for holding firm, Scott McKee!

        And all my heartfelt best to you.

        Reply

        • I would imagine with one Law Suit Still hanging the State is not going to be forth coming about any thing until The McKee Law Suit is Settled.

          Reply

          • Absolutely NO mention of any kind of ‘conditions’ like that in the recent settlement on the part of the other 12 families.

            Nothing about “When all litigations and appeals have ended”.

            Zero. Zip. Nada.

            State Forester Jeff Whitney has (supposedly) PROMISED to start sharing information with the families and answer (quote) “whatever questions they might have” IMMEDIATELY… not years from now.

            That brings up the real question (again) about ‘accountabity’.

            What provisions are their in this settlement to FORCE Whitney and Arizona Forestry to live up to all the crucial ‘promisrs’ upon which the settlement is based?

            We still have yet to see the actual document that codifies this actual settlement between Arizona Forestry and the families of at least 12 of those men who died a horrible death while working in an Arizona Forestry mis-managed workplace.

            Reply

            • Sorry about all the typos up above. Posted from a ‘dumbphone’.

              I obviously meant to say…

              Where is the “accountability” on Arizona Forestry’s part for all these crucial new promises they have made as part of a legal, binding settlement agreement?

              Reply

        • The following article clears up some confusion regarding the McKee lawsuits.

          GM Hotshot Great McKee’s father ( Grant McKee Sr. ) WAS part of the ‘enjoined lawsuits’ that were all being handled as one legal action by attorney Patrick McGroder.

          It is the original ( and FIRST ) wrongful death suit filed by Grant McKee’s MOTHER, Marcia McKee that hasn’t been settled yet. She is using a different attorney ( as in… NOT McGroder ).

          http://www.dailypilot.com/news/tn-dpt-me-0701-mckee-settlement-20150630,0,7791868.story

          Reply

          • Darnit… dumbphone spell checker struck again and changed an instance of ‘Grant’ to the word ‘Great’ up above.

            Apologies (again).

            His name was ‘Grant McKee’.

            He had no intentions of being a career Hotshot. It was just a temp job to him and he was hoping to make enough money to continue his education and pursue his dream of being an EMT.

            Reply

      • I’m sitting here waking up and wondering if this was a “group decision” of some kind.

        What benefit would there be to agree to decide to go ahead and settle, but have just one suit proceed?

        They may have won more than they lost, since it wasn’t about the money (and I believe that).

        Reply

  23. **
    ** GM HOTSHOT FAMILIES ATTORNEY PATRICK MCRODER TELLS
    ** HIS OPPONENT, ATTORNEY GENERAL MARK BRNOVICH, THAT HE
    ** KNOWS BRNOVICH ‘GOT THE BETTER OF HIM’ DURING NEGOTIATIONS..
    **
    ** MCGRODER TOLD BRNOVICH…
    **
    ** YOU GOT ME!

    I’ve finished that full transcript of the Settlement Press Conference held the other day at the Arizona Attorney General’s building in Phoenix and I will publish that shortly.

    The transcript now also shows the actual questions that the reporters were asking during the press conference.

    The transcript ALSO shows what was said by GM Hotshot families attorney Patrick McGroder to his opponent, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, the moment the press conference ended.

    I thought that deserved a POST all by itself.

    The Press Conference VIDEO itself ( 45 minutes and 33 seconds ) is HERE…

    YouTube title: FNN: Yarnell Hill Fire Settlement Press Conference
    Posted by YouTube User: FOX 10 Phoenix
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7GASJl5T6Q

    The following is a transcript of the final few moments of the press conference when the attorney for the GM Hotshot family members, Patrick McGroder, was answering a reporter’s question “What about McDonough and Blue Ridge?”

    Mr. McGroder finishes his answer, and that is the end of the press conference, but the microphone was still ‘HOT’ and we hear Mr. McGroder then saying a final “Thank you” to Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich… but then McGroder CLEARLY says to his opponent…

    “You GOT me!”

    From the Press Conference VIDEO / AUDIO…
    —————————————————————————————
    +41:49

    ( Attorney for the Hotshot familes Pat McGroder ): Now… whether or not… uh… the Federal Government decides to HIDE again as they did in another one of my cases, fast and furious, we’ll see.

    Uh… but at the end of the day… uh… I am comfortable that to the extent there are FACTS out there that we may or may not know… or a spin on those facts that we may or may not know… that information will be forthcoming.

    Thank you all for coming.

    ( Moderator ): There’s some additional information in the back… if you don’t have the details with ADOSH… back there with the gentleman… back there. Some of us will be stickin’ around. Thank you all for coming.

    ( The open microphone then captures the following verbal exchange between Plaintiff’s attorney Pat McGroder and Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich where McGroder admits to Brnovich… “You got me!” during their mano-y-mano “Thank you… NO.. thank YOU” moment on the stage )…

    +42:24
    ( Pat McGroder ): Mark… thanks man.

    ( They shake hands and pat each other on the back ).

    ( Attorney General Mark Brnovich ): Thank you, brother. Thanks for everything.

    ( Pat McGroder ): Thank you.

    ( Attorney General Mark Brnovich ): Thank YOU, seriously.

    ( Patrick McGroder ): You got me!

    ( Attorney General Mark Brnovich ): ( Laughs… three HA, HA, HA’s ).

    ( The video camera is now turned OFF ).

    END OF PRESS CONFERENCE VIDEO
    —————————————————————————————————

    So basically… we now hear from GM family attorney Patrick McGroder himself that he KNOWS Attorney General Brnovich “got the better of him” during these negotiations.

    It was NOT a ‘win’ for the families.

    McGroder KNOWS he LOST… and the Hotshot families got SCREWED.

    Just based on this statement alone… I think the Granite Mountain Hotshot families should retract the settlement agreement(s), find themselves another attorney, and just refuse to even negotiate this second time around.

    Just go for the trial… and find out what REALLY happened.

    Reply

    • There is actually a clear (visual) view of the “You GOT me!” moment in the video itself.

      The camera was panning back and around at the end of the conference but at the very moment when GM Hothshot families attorney McGroder and his ‘opponent’ Arizona Attorney General Brnovich are having their mano-y-mano “Thank you… NO… thank YOU” moment…

      The foreground clears and at exactly +42:30… McGroder says… “You GOT me!”…

      …and he is clearly pointing his finger right at Brnovich’s chest when he says it.

      Then Brnovich is clearly seen laughing his three “HA HA HA’s” in response just as the video is “fading to black”.

      If anyone is having ANY trouble hearing McGroder admit to his opponent Brnovich that the Attorney General “got the better of him” during the deliberations… just look for that moment at +42:30 when McGroder is clearly pointing his finger at Brnovich up there on the stage.

      Reply

    • **
      ** BASS-ACKWARDS

      And here is that part of the transcript of the Settlement Press Conference video that covers that moment when the attorney representing the Granite Mountain Hotshot families ( Patrick McGroder ) told the reporter ( whose first name was Howard ) that he was going to “straighten his ass out”.

      This shows the actual QUESTION that reporter asked Mr. McGroder.

      From the Settlement Press Conference video…
      —————————————————————————–

      ( Patrick McGroder, attorney for the GM Hotshot families, is still speaking to the issue of whether information is being withheld by the US Forestry Service with regards to ALL of its ’employees’… who have either never been interviewed at all or have been put under ‘gag’ orders… and that includes the Blue Ridge Hotshots, Prescott National Forest employees Jason Clawson, Aaron Hulburd and KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell, Bravo 33 Air Attack crew John Burfiend and Thomas French, and a long list of others… )

      +39:00
      ( Attorney Patrick McGroder )…

      The IDEA… the IDEA that the Federal Government is withholding information…

      The IDEA that ANYONE would withhold information from these families…

      Uh… is… it… it really speaks to the lack of understanding and empathy and dignity that they should have for these families.

      So… we would PUBLICLY call for the Blue Ridge Mountain folks and the
      National Forest Service to let their people talk.

      However… at THIS point in time… we’re dealing with families that have suffered the utmost of tragedies… and we are VERY comfortable in terms of the commitments that the State Forester has made to render information to us within HIS purview.

      Mr. McDonough is… uh.. irrelevant to this press conference today.

      +39:28
      ( Reporter 1 ): Well wait… I wanna make sure… you’re saying… that they PROMISED… based on this… NOW they will open up… which seems a little different than ‘they’ve opened up and now you feel confident’. Your last statement suggests that ‘now that we’ve got a deal… now they’ll give you the rest of the details’. That seems a little bass-ackwards.

      (Pat McGroder): Well… uh… let me straighten your ass out, Howard.

      ( Reporter 1 ): Okay. Tell me where I’m wrong.

      ( Pat McGroder ): Allright.
      ———————————————————————-

      And then McGroder DID attempt to answer the reporter’s ( Howard’s ) question… but actually never did. He just concludes his response by saying that he simply ‘thinks’ that if there are any other ‘facts’ out there still to be known or heard… that they will be (quote) “forthcoming”… but he gives no timeframe, timetables, or assurances.

      Reply

  24. Well…I just read the settlement document AZDF agreed to, and here is my take.

    The families, the truth, and almost everybody else really took a good hard fuckin’ on this one, AZDF skated by thumbing their noses at everybody, whatever they agreed to do with the families is lip service and not worth the paper it will be written on.

    The system and “they” have won again. What a joke. I’m sorry, but this is bad even for somebody who is used to seeing the worst and sees the world only in shades of grey by experience, never in black and white, right and wrong is relative not an absolute, everything is subjective and negotiable. Reading the official agreement document itself somehow seems much worse than reading a summary of it.

    I am however, interested in what each of you thinks, am I just being a negative prick or is this as bad as I think it is?

    I would NEVER have signed that document. I may not have had the money to keep fighting someone with unlimited defense funds, so I may have had to walk away, but I never would have signed that almost unconditional surrender.

    AZDF saved more than $219,000,000, you can fight for a long time for that kind of money.They aren’t even paying the families who didn’t sue the $25,000, which I thought was the LEAST they could do under the circumstances.

    Reply

    • I agree with you Gary…

      It goes to show how much value a state government puts on its dedicated employees, who go out and fight wildfires, or police or EMT’s, or what have you…

      I would hope my wife would never have signed the deal, if I was in the shoes of the GMIHS.

      Reply

      • No, that was one thing I learned over the years that took me awhile to comprehend, the government doesn’t care one little bit about the individual except in very general terms.

        The government is like a giant organism that sheds individual cells at will and focusing all of it’s energy on the health of the overall system. It’s no different than Exon Mobil or any other big company.

        And no, I don’t get the math. The millions of dollars the families got from the public changed all of the math for everybody. Nobody NEEDS any of the money from the state, some may want it, but nobody NEEDS it.

        And I have walked the walk in addition to talking the talk on that one, I would have walked away from that settlement deal in a heartbeat. The blah, blah, blah about making changes in the way fire is fought is bullshit and they could have gotten that much by writing a letter to them, or having that crazy nut job Karen Fann write a letter for them. It sounds like a big con game to me and the families have to know that, they are just looking for an excuse to get out of it with enough cover to hold their bullshit Peace With Honor press conference.

        Which I can understand, but if that’s the case, they should never have started. What did they think fighting the government for 220 million dollars was going to be like? They should have asked me, I have been blogging about it for years now at this point.

        Reply

        • Looking at this from a community perspective, I get it. Sort of like how a family has a need to bury its secrets and move on, which is accentuated if the family is a bit insular. If I were to have been giving advice to the relatives of the deceased, part of it would have been focused on, once they decided to pursue a lawsuit, to move and develop support networks in another state. Because the screw-ups here were pervasive. The people they were negotiating with have practice every day in distancing themselves emotionally from problems and cleaning up, and doing so under a badge of authority. The families have no practice, no badge, and have just gone through grieving so are even more subject to pressure to paper everything over to make everyone “feel nice.” So, from a social network and social pressure perspective, I get it.

          Reply

  25. **
    ** AZCENTRAL JUST DID A VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH EX-BLUE RIDGE HOTSHOT
    ** RONNIE GAMBLE… WHO SHOT THE ‘YARNELL-GAMBLE’ VIDEO

    In conjunction with this SECOND anniversary of the tragedy in Yarnell, AZCENTRAL did a VIDEO interview with ex-Blue Ridge Hotshot Ronnie Gamble.

    Ronnie Gamble is ( supposedly ) the Blue Ridge Hotshot who was sitting in the driver’s seat of one of the Blue Ridge Crew Carriers and shot the infamous video entitled YARNELL-GAMBLE at exactly 4:27 PM.

    That’s the video that (apparently) captured a conversation with someone in fire management wondering why Granite Mountain wasn’t ‘in town’ yet and then telling Eric Marsh to “Hurry up and get town” at 4:27 PM.

    Eric Marsh replied ( with exasperation in his voice ) “They’re comin’ from the heel of the fire”.

    The identity of the person who seemed to be fully aware that Granite Mountain had an ‘assignment’ in Yarnell and was wondering why they weren’t in place yet at 4:27 PM has never been fully established.

    CAVEAT: It has also never been fully established that the conversation at the beginning of the YARNELL-GAMBLE clip with someone telling someone to “Hurry up… but you’re the superintendent… you’ll figure it out” actually was the radio traffic that Eric Marsh was actually responding to with his “They’re comin’ from the heel of the fire” response. But regardless… Eric Marsh’s voice and his response has never been in doubt and Marsh was obviously responding to SOMEONE in fire command whom he felt obligated to report to about the current status of Granite Mountain at 4:27 PM… just 12 minutes before Jesse Steed’s first MAYDAY was going to appear on the Air-To-Ground radio channel.

    As we discovered here a few months ago… shortly after the tragedy, Blue Ridge Hothshot Ronnie Gamble left the Blue Ridge organization and went to work as part of the ‘new’ Prescott Station 7 ‘Fuels Crew’. ( along with two other FFs yet to be identified ).

    He actually works out of ‘Station 7’ in Prescott, the former home of the Granite Mountain Hotshots,. and that’s where this recent AZCENTRAL video interview actually took place.

    As you will see if you watch the video… he and the other two Prescott Fuels Crew members are still ‘spooked’ about stepping on the black tiles that spell out GMIHC onthe floor of Station 7. Eric Marsh laid those tiles himself and the rule when he was alive was that if any ‘newbie’ stepped on any black tile in the GMIHC logo on the floor… they were immediately obliged to “drop and give me 50” ( pushups ).

    So Gamble and the other FFs are still ‘spooked’ about that and they try to never step on the black tiles.

    I think that’s just WEIRD ( and unnecessary ) but you’re mileage may, of course, vary.

    This AZCENTRAL article actually went NATIONAL today, and the following is the USAToday link…

    AZCENTRAL
    Article Title: Crew continues work started by fallen Arizona firefighters
    Published: 4:50 p.m. EDT June 30, 2015 by Richard Ruelas, The Arizona Republic
    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/06/30/yarnell-hill-fire-anniversary/29508705/

    VIDEO window has this caption…
    —————————————————-
    Prescott firefighter Ronnie Gamble works with two other firefighters
    continuing the work of the 19 Granite Mountain Hot Shots killed in
    the Yarnell Hill Fire in 2013.
    —————————————————-

    Here is a TRANSCRIPT of the audio from this video interview with Ronnie Gamble…

    RR = AZCENTRAL reporter Richard Ruelas
    —————————————————————————————
    ( RR ): It’s hard for any firefighter to work in the shadow of the Granite Mountain Hotshots.

    ( Ronnie Gamble ): It’s very humbling, ya know, I mean… knowing that the reason I have a job is because of what these men did.

    ( RR ): Ronnie Gamble works with two other firefighters cutting brush and trees to stop the spread of wildfires. They fight fires before they get started.

    ( Ronnie Gamble ): So you can tell by looking at it how much we thinned that out.

    ( RR ): At Prescott Fire Station 7, reminders of the 19 firefighters who died in the Yarnell Hill Fire are everywhere.

    ( Ronnie Gamble ): You tend not to think about it.. but you never forget. When you walk in through these doors.. ya know… you respect… you respect those guys, ya know, one of the rules is that you don’t step onto the black.

    After you were here for a year as a Hotshot… you were allowed to step on the black tiles on the floor and so… ya know… all of here who have never… ya know.. been on the Granite Mountain Hotshots… we still honor that rule… ya know… we honor that for them… ya know.. because we… we’ll never be Granite Mountain Hotshots so we… still just don’t… we.. we honor that rule and we don’t walk on the black tiles.

    It’s somethin’ we can still do to honor them… ya know. They were great men.

    I think with time… um… it gets easier.
    You never forget… but with time it gets easier.

    ( RR ): In a quiet way… he’s continuing the work of the Hotshots, following in footsteps left at Station 7.
    —————————————————————————————

    The absolute ASTOUNDING thing here about this VIDEO interview is that here we have Ronnie Gamble himself consenting to a VIDEO interview with Richard Ruelas from the Arizona Republic ( who has been known to be doing hard-hitting coverage of the Yarnell incident from day one )… and reporter Richard Ruelas doesn’t ask him ONE SINGLE QUESTION about this infamous YARNELL-GAMBLE video that he ( supposedly ) shot and was supplied to the original SAIT investigation.

    Much less any question such as… “Did you hear the rest of that conversation that was apparently taking place between someone in fire command and DIVSA Eric Marsh.. and do you recall the CALL SIGN of the person who appears to be urging him to “Hurry up”?

    I.Just.Can’t.

    If Ronnie Gamble now feels that free to be ‘interviewed’ and talk about Granite Mountain ‘on camera’… I wish Ruelas would shoot right back to Station 7 and ask him even just that one crucial question.

    It is still REALLY, REALLY important.

    What’s almost a little scary is to realize that there he is… one of the Blue Ridge Hotshots who might still hold the KEY to what happened to the Granite Mountain Hotshots… no longer working for the Blue Ridge Hotshots but, instead, showing up for work every day in the same station where Granite Mountain worked and trying not to step on the black tiles laid by Eric Marsh.

    You.Just.Can’t.Make.This.Shit.Up.

    Reply

    • Actually.. if anything we heard at a press conference yesterdady initiated by the Arizona Attorney General himself… and attended by Arizona Governor Doug Ducey’s own personal legal counsel is TRUE…

      And if anything attorney Pat McGroder and new Arizona Sate Forester Jeff Whitney said at this same PUBLIC press conference is not complete BULLSHIT…

      Then Jeff Whitney, Pat McGroder, Prescott Fire Chief Dennis Light, and the families of the deceased Granite Mountain Hotshots should walk into that Granite Mountain Station 7 with a video camera as soon as possible and the resulting video should capture the following conversation…

      ——————————————————————————
      ( Prescott Fire Chief Dennis Light ): Just answer the questions as best as you can Ronnie, and don’t be afraid. I am you’re boss and I’m assuring you whatever you say… you are NOT going to lose your job.

      ( Pat McGroder or Jeff Whitney ): Ronnie… tell us everything you know about this YARNELL-GAMBLE video that you seem to have supplied to the SAIT investigators. Did you remember the REST of that conversation and do you remember the CALL SIGN of the person who seemed to be wondering why Granite Mountain wasn’t where he was expecting them to be by 4:27 PM and was then telling Marsh to get them to “Hurry up”.

      ( Ronnie Gamble then says ): ?????????
      ———————————————————————————

      If he doesn’t remember… he doesn’t remember.

      If he DOES… then this could end up one of the most important pieces of testimony that has ever surfaced in this ongoing investigation.

      If he remembers ANYTHING ELSE about that 4:27 PM ‘YARNELL-GAMBLE’ radio conversation… then it could blow the lid off everything that appears to have been always been concealed as fast as you can say…

      “It’s always okay to just tell the frickin’ TRUTH”.

      Reply

      • I mean… this is not ‘rocket science’, folks.

        There he is… one of the persons who might hold the KEY to finding out what really happened on June 30, 2013 actually showing up for work every day at the very ‘Station 7’ where the dead men used to work… trying not to step on black tiles.

        Reply

        • Followup…

          Forgot to mention…

          It’s also not like AZCENTRAL reporter Richard Ruelas didn’t know WHO he was actually talking to, either.

          In the TEXT portion of Ruelas’ report we find this…

          ———————————————————————
          Gamble also fought the Yarnell Hill Fire, as part of the Blue Ridge Hotshots.

          His team picked up Brendan McDonough, the lone survivor of the Granite Mountain crew working as a scout some distance from the fire. The other 19 members of the Granite Mountain crew perished June 30, 2013, when they were overtaken by fire in a brush-filled canyon.
          ———————————————————————

          That’s it.

          That’s all he said about Gamble’s involvement with the Yarnell File.

          ASTOUNDINGLY… absolutely NO MENTION that this is the individual who is presumed to have shot the infamous YARNELL-GAMBLE video… which could still hold the key to one of the biggest ‘mysteries’ of this entire tragedy.

          Reply

    • I caught that one, too.

      I bet Holly Neil did, also.

      And the Gamble video was one of her major “talking points” in her evaluation of Kyle Dickman’s book on Amazon Dot Com.

      Speaking of Kyle Dickman, he was interviewed June 28 on National Public Radio.

      “Two Years After Deadly Wildfire, Are There Lessons In The Ashes?”

      http://wvpublic.org/post/two-years-after-deadly-wildfire-are-there-lessons-ashes

      ” And the fire suddenly changed direction — there was 30-to-40 mph winds … what had been a relatively sleepy flank of the fire suddenly jumped and became, you know, 20-foot and then 30-foot and then 40-foot flames. And that wall of fire was rushing toward the town of Yarnell. And Eric Marsh, who was the superintendent of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, was forced to make a decision. He had to decide whether or not he wanted to leave the safety of what’s called “the black,” which is the already burned fuel, and move into the town of Yarnell, where they could presumably do something to protect the houses, or he could keep his crew in the safety of the black and watch this town burn.

      Ultimately, of course, he decided to move the crew back into the town of Yarnell. And they never made it; the fire caught them before they reached the houses.”

      Reply

      • Kyle Dickman didn’t speak of the same “Lessons Learned” we have written here.

        He, as usual, pulls the focus to the need for, as Gamble did, also, essentially, controlling fire on our terms instead of trying (mostly in vain) to fight fire on its terms.

        Which is, absolutely, a good and necessary thing.

        Reply

    • Based on my experience that interview was set up by the Prescott Fire Department and or the City of Prescott Public Information Officer or the equivalent and there were preconditions that Ruelas agreed to, especially regarding the general topics and even specific questions that could be asked or discussed.

      I am very confident that not only was at least one PIO present off camera, but Gamble’s boss was also present very closely monitoring everything that was asked or said and they were prepared to step in and intervene at any moment. Think…North Korea without the prison camps, torture or being eaten alive by starved attack dogs for displeasing the regime.

      Gamble was prepped ahead of time by both the PIO and his boss. Gamble knows who is depositing a paycheck in his name at his bank 26 times a year and he knows he is pretty low in the food chain. Getting his current job was a big break for him and he knows it and keeping his job is his number one priority in life right now. The GMIHC are gone and he knows he can’t bring them back or make it hurt less.

      Now you can argue that Ruelas professional ethics as a news reporter or journalist should have precluded him from agreeing to those preconditions, which if he hadn’t agreed to them, there wouldn’t have been an interview or story period, but that is another topic entirely.

      But there is no doubt in my mind that Gamble was not free to talk, he has full time employment, he gets to be home on a regular basis and he had benefits, like a retirement package of some sort even in this day and age of war on the former middle class, and health insurance, which thanks to the Affordable Care Act is probably pretty good.

      Which brings up a point I have hinted at, but I have never said outright. Why have I spent so much time talking about my retirement benefits, politics, marital status (as in married to an attractive woman who makes more money than I do and is a lot smarter than I am) the seat I had at the table were discussions were held at the highest levels of the agency I worked for to cover problems up (not because of corruption or bribes necessarily, but just because everybody likes it when there are no problems, like the politicians and even the public so the special interest groups who are connected can operate freely without any pesky oversight) and my years (30 years in a system that considered 20 years full retirement) of service?

      It’s very simple really (other than I like to brag) and most of you have probably already figured it out. I don’t want to be pegged as a lonely, bitter, angry, loser in the game of life. I really do care about other people, not more than myself, but because I have all I need plus a little more, I can afford to be concerned about others.

      For example, others like Eric Marsh, Jesse Steed and 17 more Granite Mountain Hotshots who were mostly kids and who deserved to do all the same kinds of things I have done with my life, have the opportunity to see the things I have seen and have a chance to have the same kinds of experiences I had. And so now I can look back and truthfully say without regret, it was one a hellavu ride. And if I had it to do all over again…I would, except I would try harder to get it right next time!

      Reply

      • Exactly.

        And what you wrote dove-tails with something I’ve been wondering.

        It SOUNDS LIKE AZDF is inviting the Blue Ridge Hotshots et al to speak freely.

        I wonder how real that invitation is.

        If Holly Neill is as interested as we are in Ronnie Gamble’s video (which she most certainly is), have both of them REALLY, just been invited to get together and have a nice little chat about that?

        Reply

          • Oops. I forgot. Today is the first day of my announced retirement from this job.

            But, then, you’re on sabbatical, also.

            Salud!

            Reply

            • Marti,

              I have taught you everything I know…and still you don’t know anything (tongue in cheek, hee, hee, just kidding, so on and so forth).

              NO…it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to the United States Department Of Agriculture – Forest Service what AZDF wants, thinks, cares about, doesn’t want, or either isn’t smart enough or know or smart enough to think about.

              The USDA-Forest Service, more specifically the attorneys representing them, don’t care about you or me, or anyone else, or any other group, the Blue Ridge Hotshots, or any other individual federal employee or the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew, the fact that they are dead, how or why they died, their families or the TRUTH…period, end of story.

              These attorney’s work for the USDA Office of the Solicitor General, they are bound by ethics, regulations, laws, policies and their individual job descriptions to care about only ONE thing. And that ONE thing is the best interests of their CLIENT, the USDA-Forest Service as an AGENCY, and by extension, the federal government itself and the American people as a whole.

              They will do anything (that’s legal and ethical by the loose standards that govern the behavior of attorneys) and that includes cutting the throats (figuratively speaking) of ANYONE who threatens or could possibly threaten in the future in any way conceivable the best interests of their clients…you and me.

              They will never lift that gag order or tell you, me or anyone else what they know, because that would not be in the best interests of their client. For starters, they would lose their jobs, their licenses to practice law and maybe even be prosecuted. And you should not interpret that gag order as an indicator that they know anything, or there is anything to hide, that is standard protocol that is ALWAYS implemented just as a matter of Standard Operating Procedure, it always happens. I have had a lot of gag orders put on me, anyone would have to have their permission to ever talk to me and they never give permission. I keep telling everyone on this thread you have no idea what dealing with, fighting or challenging the federal government in anyway that threatens them is like, what it will mean to you and your happiness in the long run (or short run).

              The only time you can get them to do anything, is when the behavior was so outrageous and that almost always involves a deliberate, brazen, malicious, violation of the United States Constitution or by acts the violated the U.S. Constitution that were so stupid, not just regular stupid, but think…criminally stupid, that they decide to take themselves to the woodshed for a spanking…and then they will give you permission to go after an individual(s). Don’t you ever watch the news (tongue in cheek, hee, hee), the only people who ever go to prison are the whistleblowers, not the wrongdoers.

              Reply

              • Let me see if I can shorten that answer…the attorneys who work for the government are no different than attorneys who worked for Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, HealthSouth, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, Bernie Madoff, AIG or Exon after the Exon Valdez spilled all of that oil in the Gulf of Alaska.

                Just think about how they represented their clients, the government attorneys represent all of us in the same way. It’s just what they do.

                Reply

                • Oh…and one more thing, I have given up on my sabbatical, I have discovered I am a serial blogger.

                  Plus, I can’t expect others to keep going when I am not willing to do the same thing. In addition, believe it or not, I keep learning things that should be put in my Yarnell Hill Fire chapter, nothing that you don’t know about or really earth shaking (since the info about the Clear Creek Fire, which was earth shaking to me) but little things that all add up…to little WTF…Over? moments.

                  Reply

              • Thanks Gary!

                I was hoping you would substantiate my suspicions.

                Remember, my dad was the chief meteorologist for the atmospheric nuclear weapons testing program.

                Which is why I thought it was weird that AZDF and the lawyers were saying that.

                Reply

                • Of course I had picked up your dad was a meteorologist, but not THAT meteorologist, they wrote one of the books on keeping secrets and not really worrying about the public in general, or what they think or want to know…trust us, we know what’s best for you.

                  Reply

      • Reply to Gary Olson post on July 1, 2015 at 6:14 am

        >> Gary Olson said…
        >>
        >> Based on my experience that interview was set up by the Prescott Fire
        >> Department and or the City of Prescott Public Information Officer or the
        >> equivalent and there were preconditions that Ruelas agreed to, especially
        >> regarding the general topics and even specific questions that could be
        >> asked or discussed.
        >>
        >> I am very confident that not only was at least one PIO present off
        >> camera, but Gamble’s boss was also present very closely monitoring
        >> everything that was asked or said and they were prepared to step in
        >> and intervene at any moment. Think…North Korea without the prison
        >> camps, torture or being eaten alive by starved attack dogs for
        >> displeasing the regime.

        Once again, Gary… you have “nailed it from your living room”.

        There is no direct mention in the article of the “powers that be” sitting just off-camera… but there IS a photo that accompanies the article itself which proves that was the case.

        Again… that interview with former Blue Ridge Hotshot Ronnie Gamble ( the one who is assumed to have shot the infamous YARNELL-GAMBLE video ) is here…

        AZCENTRAL
        Article Title: Crew continues work started by fallen Arizona firefighters
        Published: 4:50 p.m. EDT June 30, 2015 by Richard Ruelas, The Arizona Republic
        http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/06/30/yarnell-hill-fire-anniversary/29508705/

        At the BOTTOM of the article is a photograph of the “field trip’ that the reporter took with Gamble out to a site that had been worked on by Gamble and his “Fuels Crew”.

        Standing right next to Gamble in the photo ( in the distance ) is Gambles direct supervisor, new Prescott Fire Department ‘Community Interface’ Division Chief Don Devendorf.

        Here is the full caption on that photo at the bottom of the article…

        —————————————————————-
        Prescott Fire Department’s division chief, Don Devendorf, left; and Ronnie Gamble, fuels reduction coordinator, look at an area they cleared of brush April 22, 2015, in Prescott, Ariz. A crew of three now works out of the Granite Mountain Hotshot station doing fuels management. (Photo: Michael Chow, The Arizona Republic)
        —————————————————————–

        So even though Prescott Fire Division Chief Don Devendorf does NOT appear in the VIDEO that accompanies the article… there is NO DOUBT that he was standing just off camera the whole time and breathing down the reporter’s neck.

        It’s actually odd that he ( Devendorf and any other Prescott PIOs that were lurking around for this interview ) would have even let reporter Ruelas MENTION that Ronnie Gamble was a former Blue Ridge Hotshot… and that he was THERE in Yarnell that fateful day.

        I can imagine the ‘negotiations’ with AZCENTRAL and reporter Ruelas went something like this…

        —————————————————————
        ( Reporter Richard Ruelas ): Okay… I get it… I can’t ask this Gamble guy ANYTHING about Yarnell or that YARNELL-GAMBLE video he seems to have taken… but the people at InvestigativeMEDIA found out MONTHS ago that this IS the same “Ronald Gamble” who was there in Yarnell as a Blue Ridge Hotshot on June 30, 2013, and that he’s the one who shot that YARNELL-GAMBLE video with Eric Marsh clearly saying, at exactly 4:27 PM ( in the middle of a supposed communications blackout ), “They’re comin’ from the heel of the fire”.

        So my BYLINE for the story itself is that he IS that guy… and that he WAS part of Blue Ridge who saved Brendan McDonough’s ass that day.

        So if I can’t at least mention that he WAS a Blue Ridge Hotshot and that he WAS there in Yarnell on June 30… and now there he is working for YOU and trying not to step on those black tiles Eric Marsh put down… then the whole deal is off.

        You will NOT get your little FREE ‘commercial’ for this new brush clearing deal you have going there in Prescott if I can’t at least mention he WAS one of the Blue Ridge Hotshots in Yarnell.
        ———————————————————————–

        So (perhaps) the Prescott PIO’s caved.

        They agreed to just at least let Ruelas ‘mention’ that this Gamble guy WAS a Blue Ridge Hotshot… so Ruelas could at least “tie that in” for an interesting BYLINE and a better STORY.

        Heck… the Prescott PIOS ( and/or Devendorf ) might have been already perfectly aware that we proved months ago right here on this forum that he IS the same Ronald Gamble who was with the Blue Ridge Hotshots on June 30, 2013… now coming to work every day for the Prescott Fire Department.

        So what the heck… just let Ruelas mention THAT… but under NO circumstances could there be any questions about what else Ronnie Gamble heard circa 4:27 PM in Yarnell on June 30, 2013.

        Actually… am I the only one who is just cynical enough to think that the very reason Ronald Gamble IS now sitting right there in Eric Marsh’s old office is because the Prescott Fire Department thought it would be a good idea to have him there where they can keep their ‘eye’ on him… and continue to CONTROL what he says?

        Is it REALLY just some gigantic coincidence that the guy who MIGHT know who was telling Eric Marsh to “Hurry up” in Yarnell on June 30, 2013 is now coming to work every day and sitting in Eric Marsh’s old office?

        Reply

  26. BREAKING!!!!!

    IN OTHER NEWZZZZZZZZ

    So the State won the auction for the site.
    ————————————–

    State wins land auction for Yarnell memorial

    3 hours ago • The Associated Press0
    PRESCOTT, Ariz. (AP) — The site where 19 Arizona firefighters died battling a wind-driven blaze will become a memorial park.

    The Arizona State Parks won a public auction Tuesday for the 320 acres near Yarnell where the Granite Mountain Hotshots were overrun by flames exactly two years ago. One crew member who was at another site serving as the lookout survived.

    State Parks Director Sue Black was the sole bidder in the auction held at the Yavapai County Courthouse plaza. She held up her bidding card, which she turned from a “1” to a “19” when the auction began, agreeing to pay the fair market value of $304,000.

    Family and friends of the Hotshots cheered and hugged one another when Black was declared the winner.

    http://tucson.com/news/state-and-regional/state-wins-land-auction-for-yarnell-memorial/article_f5932200-1f76-11e5-829a-1b6b9548913c.html

    So that’s good news. I’m feeling 20% better.

    Reply

    • Of course… the $196,000 dollar question NOW is…

      What happens to the other $196,000 dollars?

      The Arizona State Legislature allocated $500,000 for the purchase of the land.

      How that money became immediately ( and directly ) available to “Arizona State Parks” so they could actually “do the bidding” themselves today is a bit of a ‘backroom’ mystery… but regardless… what happens now to the part of the allocation they did NOT have to spend?

      Does ‘Arizona Parks’ get to use the extra $196,000 to help pay for better ‘access rights’ to the site, or to begin to deal with “handicap access”, or (perhaps) it gets to be applied to the site design and infrastructure development costs?…

      …or do they have to turn the extra $196,000 back over to the State and everything that happens from this point on still has to be done with ‘donations’?

      I suppose if this PUBLIC “Arizona State sponsored Yarnell Hill Memorial Site Board” ever starts obeying Arizona LAW and publishing the minutes to all of their PUBLIC meetings… we might find that out.

      Reply

      • “Does ‘Arizona Parks’ get to use the extra $196,000 to help pay for better ‘access rights’ to the site, or to begin to deal with “handicap access”, or (perhaps) it gets to be applied to the site design and infrastructure development costs?…:

        Well, given that I wasn’t sure how they were going to pay even for that trail that was in that Plan, I’m guessing that they must have been hoping (or something) they would have enough money left over from the purchase to do that.

        Or maybe wave that money in front of Maughan™ (and maybe even Helms™) to get him/them to back down and open up his/their rights-o-wayz to make it easier for the public to access that site?

        “…or do they have to turn the extra $196,000 back over to the State and everything that happens from this point on still has to be done with ‘donations’?”

        I just don’t know. Twill be interesting.

        OTOH, from this point forward, AZ State Parks has their own budgets to do what AZ State Parks does with AZ State Parks. Even though AZ has been seriously negligent in funding AZ State Parks, that has resulted in AZ State Parks getting increasingly creative in finding monies to do what they decide they need to do.

        And there’s this little thingy in my mind regarding some memory that Yavapai County has taken upon themselves some commitment to some kind of “maintenance” of the site. But I’m currently too braindead (after spending the past two days researching the legal details of Friday’s Supreme Court Decision regarding Marriage Equality and the challenges to it) to go looking for that little thingy in my mind. And, to be honest, that might have nothing to do with what we are talking about, generally speaking.

        All I have to say is that it will be quite interesting to see how this evolves.

        “suppose if this PUBLIC “Arizona State sponsored Yarnell Hill Memorial Site Board” ever starts obeying Arizona LAW and publishing the minutes to all of their PUBLIC meetings… we might find that out.”

        Totally agree. WTF is this all about???

        Reply

        • Reply to Marti Reed post on June 30, 2015 at 8:59 pm

          >> Marti Reed said…
          >>
          >> All I have to say is that it will be quite interesting to
          >> see how this evolves.

          Yes… but you already said it yourself.

          Amidst what has been a very confusing 48 hours full of ‘announcements’ ( which I had a feeling were all going to POP at once )… the news that Arizona State Parks really does now OWN the land ( forever ) is really a GOOD piece of news.

          It still just hurts my brain to think what would have happened if people who have already quoted the Bible and Leviticus for why any ‘psychic’ or ‘medium’ should be BANNED from ever even just visiting the site might have gotten ahold of that deployment site.

          >> Marti also said…
          >>
          >> “suppose if this PUBLIC “Arizona State sponsored Yarnell Hill
          >> Memorial Site Board” ever starts obeying Arizona LAW and
          >> publishing the minutes to all of their PUBLIC meetings… we
          >> might find that out.”
          >>
          >> Totally agree. WTF is this all about???

          Don’t forget that the absolute FIRST order of business that this ‘Yarnell Hill Site Board’ did when they FIRST got together for their FIRST meeting was to immediately go into ‘Executive Session’ to consult with the lawyers about whether they ( as a bona-fide Arizona PUBLIC Board ) had to pay any attention to this pesky LAW stuff and either allow the public to attend any meetings.

          We still don’t know what was actually said ( or by who ) during that FIRST ‘Executive Session’… but since the public HAS been invited to all subsequent meetings it’s pretty safe to say they ‘lawyers’ responded to the ‘Board’ in that Executive Session with something like…

          “Yes. You DO have to provide proper PUBLIC notice for your little meetings and you DO have invite the PUBLIC. That’s the BAD news. The WORSE news is that you really do also have to allow for ‘public comment’ at any of these meetings. I know you’d rather just do whatever the fuck you want and not have to have anything to do with the PUBLIC… but that’s not what this is all about.”

          So yea… the fact that they ( the Board ) aren’t paying attention to Arizona Law with regards to posting the ‘agendas’ and the ‘minutes’ according to the required timeframes is no surprise.

          It’s sort of like the attitude of a lot of FFs and FF agencies have with regards to “the public” ( the people who actually pay their salaries ).

          “Just give us ALL the money we want… and go away and leave us alone”.

          Reply

          • “Just give us ALL the money we want… and go away and leave us alone”.

            And “BWAHAHAHAHA” with all your pesky little conspiracy theories!

            Reply

  27. I confess.

    After reading WTKTT’s postings here regarding the settlement (and THANK YOU WTKTT for posting them), and doing a bit more looking around, I have just been too numb and disgusted and disheartened and cognitively dissonanced (and trying to re-convince myself over and over again that I haven’t wasted a large chunk of my past year and a half — including while my mom was dying — working on this quest for THE TRUTH (CT™) …

    … to even want to THINK about this FIRE™ and this ANNIVERSARY™ today.

    The first words that came to mind were:

    “Nothing to see here, move along”

    “OK”

    Rinse Repeat Rinse Repeat Rinse Repeat

    My next thought (and I was actually going to post this) was:

    “I really really can’t think of anything more to say.”

    And I was going to just post that and walk away, for I don’t know how long, which you all know where that’s coming from.

    ——————————————————————-

    And then I remembered this. From June 30, 2014.

    That KPHO story/video

    “State keeping Yarnell Hill Fire secrets, say critics”
    Posted: Jun 30, 2014 6:13 PM MDT
    By Morgan Loew

    It’s the story that features our very favorite law professor.

    But it also features Scott McKee, Grant McKee’s father.
    ————————————————-

    “”There’s a lot of things that had been withheld and lied about, and you cannot lie to somebody about how their child died,” said Scott McKee, whose son, Grant, was killed on the mountain that day.

    McKee believes state forestry officials know more than they have disclosed about what happened.”

    http://www.kpho.com/story/25909911/state-keeping-yarnell-hill-fire-secrets-say-critics

    This actually fits in with the conversation below about Investigations™ in the era of “Lessons Learned™”.

    So, I guess what Scott McKee said “you cannot lie to somebody about how their child died,” is really about all I have to say.

    Except for this addition:

    I wonder where Scott McKee went?

    Reply

      • And still not one single comment from ANYONE on the Gabbert article even though the comment box is fully engaged.

        Sometimes Gabbert posts something and he turns the comment option OFF. That is not the case with this posting of his about the settlement.

        There are simply NO COMMENTS from his readership.

        Zero. Zip. Nada.

        If you know his Wildfire Today site… that qualifies as VERY unusual.

        Reply

    • “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.”

      Good luck, Wildland Firefighters!!

      My Number One “Lessons Learned™” lesson learned from the Yarnell Hill Wildfire.

      By lightyears.

      Reply

        • Also when you see Roxanne speak and holding Billy-

          that’s why I do it-
          the innocence of a child who one day may want to know the truth of why daddy is not here…

          Also let us all regroup and remember what Gary wrote even though comes off harsh—it is an unjust how it was done and yes where is McKee’s dad this anniversary?

          Reply

          • “that’s why I do it-
            the innocence of a child who one day may want to know the truth of why daddy is not here…”

            I love you, “The Hikers says” !

            And tomorrow, after I recover from this funk, I will email you.

            Namaste

            Reply

  28. I am sure me or anyone else on this board could write the Lessons Learned script.

    Follow the 10 and 18.
    Fight fire based on actual and predicted fire behaviour
    Have a lookout in place at all times
    Ensure communications are in place with command staff, who have the ability to veto a stupid plan.
    One NO is a no-go!!! If your gut says its a bad idea, it probably is.
    Don’t risk your own personal well being (life) in order to save some scrub shit brush or a community that is not defendable.
    DON’T TRY TO BE A FRIGGIN HERO!!! Think of your family when you decide to do a risky move and reflect on how it could affect them for the rest of their lives…

    Feel free to tag on and extend more lessons…

    Oh, I forgot…
    When doing an investigation, do a thorough, complete job, holding nothing back and/or worrying about hurting feelings .or pointing fingers where fingers need to be pointed. Open, honest true investigation….

    Reply

    • We need a cool acronym that would make it easy to remember….

      LACES…
      Lookouts
      Anchor Points
      Communications
      Escape Routes
      Safety Zones…

      OH WAIT, we already have that… too bad they did not use it…

      Reply

    • Reply to rocksteady post on June 30, 2015 at 2:30 pm

      >> rocksteady said…
      >>
      >> Follow the 10 and 18.
      >> Fight fire based on actual and predicted fire behaviour
      >> Have a lookout in place at all times
      >> Ensure communications are in place with command staff, who
      >> have the ability to veto a stupid plan.

      Here’s an idea… those absolute ‘common sense’ rules should be codified by the industry, and published in some kind of ‘pocket guide’ that can be carried by all WFFs to remind them that these are some of the BASE RULES of their profession that MUST be followed at all times.

      Oops. I forgot. Already done LONG before June 30, 2013.

      >> rocksteady also said…
      >>
      >> When doing an investigation, do a thorough, complete job, holding nothing
      >> back and/or worrying about hurting feelings .or pointing fingers where
      >> fingers need to be pointed. Open, honest true investigation….

      As far as I know… there are still no PUBLIC copies of the actual ‘settlement’ documents… so it’s hard to say for sure what is actually in them ( or not in them )… but so far what seems astounding is that there has been NO MENTION of the “investigation process” and what CHANGES Arizona Forestry intends to make there.

      There is still absolutely NO QUESTION that Arizona Forestry conducted ( via contractors ) one of the most worthless fire fatality investigations in history.

      That is still the “elephant in the room”.

      There is still every chance of more fatal accidents that will NOT kick in either the USFS or the Inspector General’s office on the investigations. That ONLY happens ( automatically and by law ) if a Federal employee is one of the dead or injured.

      So what about future Arizona Forestry investigations into injuries and death?

      Is it just going to be ‘rinse and repeat’?

      Publish BULLSHIT, hope ADOSH doesn’t come snooping around and that no one sues… but if they do… just fight all that off like its junkyard dog yapping at your heels?

      If the families did NOT address this part of the whole ‘tragedy’… and make it a REQUIREMENT that future incidents are ‘better investigated’…

      …then, in essence, they just wasted all that time and energy.

      Other families WILL still have to go through what they just went through… and the same people who are spouting “Brotherhood forever” and “We must take care of the families no matter what” will still be the same people who will sick their free Arizona Attorney General’s office lawyers on your ass if you dare to ask any questions like “What really happened”?

      Reply

      • Here’s an idea… those absolute ‘common sense’ rules should be codified by the industry, and published in some kind of ‘pocket guide’ that can be carried by all WFFs to remind them that these are some of the BASE RULES of their profession that MUST be followed at all times.

        reply:
        or tattoo it on their arms so when their sleeves are rolled up they have it right there on their arm…kidding…long day and I am hearing from all areas from loved ones of the gmhs to homeowners to just depressed people plus long day at hospital…plus I am sad because just so many things and I GET the litigations and predicted it but Craig Knapp said June 29th 9:20pm he stated “Don’t worry. I will not settle for 50k per family. The State knows that, I’ve litigated against them many times. The appeals will be filed.” So I will continue on doing the needed research still. What else…just too much information coming at me WRONG DAY is all…Carrie Dennett no longer handles public records for Arizona State Forestry. How do I challenge the incomplete FOIA interview on the hikers…PUBLIC and authors DO NOT USE THEIR INCOMPLETE INTERVIEW ON US or you will put out misinformation like Dickman did- my plate is too full but I will get the records of that interview we had and I already KNOW it does not match what I read today..WTF????

        I have too much information coming in…just wrong time,,
        I can tell you this for the homeowners and some of the folks we met of the GMHS I will continue to get you pieces to the puzzle…I am very understanding to comments Gary made today and I totally hope we can as a Investigative Media team finally piece it together…who cares if 2 investigative reports did an injustice and who cares of the lawyers and Forestry feel the way they do…I was on those Weavers…I know that terrain. I know more details than I have yet spoken because of the confidentiality level of the folks and THEY NEED TO SPEAK UP— I have one enough speaking up…It is YOUR TIME to speak up…

        Reply

      • Without some kind of version of “10s and 18s” for Wildfire Management, I don’t think anything provided here will make one IOTA of a difference.

        Seriously.

        It wasn’t rolled up sleeves that got the Granite Mountain Hotshots killed.

        It was a plan agreed to and co-implemented by the effective first-in-command Operations Supervisor, at that time, on that fire, possibly initiated by a Division Supervisor (who also happened, normally, to be the Supervisor of the Granite Mountain Hotshots), which, given the timing and circumstances of the implementation of that plan, was an extremely dangerous last-ditch hail mary plan…………

        ………..that got the Granite Mountain Hotshots killed.

        And if somebody doesn’t like that…………

        ………feel FREE to prove me wrong.

        Reply

        • Regarding the 10s and 18s for Wildland Fire Management.

          There IS something that addresses this, and it’s Safety Matters and their June 2014 “Safety Matters Forum Briefing.”

          http://ffsafetymatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/SMBriefingFINALnoCOV.pdf

          I remembered this when I was posting upstream about Holly Neill. It’s something I’ve been meaning to mention but just hadn’t gotten a Round Tuit.

          The people involved in Safety Matters are some of the people who wrote the report for the ADOSH investigation. Here’s part of what they say in their briefing:
          ———————————————————-

          “A year has passed since the deaths of 19 firefighters on the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona. Another fire season is now underway. The agencies managing wildland fire have not made any significant changes to existing procedures, nor have they announced any plans for procedural or policy updates for the future. This reflects the apparent perception that the existing system is working as well as can be expected. Safety Matters disagrees.

          The mission of wildland firefighters has never been clearly stated or understood. The public, elected officials, agency managers and firefighters themselves not only interpret the mission differently, but their perception changes if the situation becomes dire. Firefighter and public safety is continually stated to be the highest priority by all agencies involved in wildland fire. Safety Matters does not believe this statement is always put into practice.

          The following pages illustrate topics where we feel firefighter safety could not only be improved, but that this could largely be accomplished by changing existing procedures with potentially minimal cost. These topics are not intended to be the comprehensive fix, but instead highlight some of the existing safety deficiencies in the system.

          Safety Matters has identified the following areas in need of immediate change, in order to provide for maximum firefighter safety. They include:

           A benefit analysis of values at risk (homes, private property, public lands) vs. the risk to firefighter’s lives.

          Development of an independent investigative body for serious accidents and fatalities.

           Direct involvement of agency administrators and program managers, especially when fires escape initial attack and incident management teams are mobilizing or in transition.

           Establishing standardized emergency communications protocol.

           Establishing uniformity in mapping systems.”

          Of course, they have been essentially stonewalled by the US Forest Service, the National Wildfire Co-ordinating Group, and the Department of the Interior.

          Wait, why would I say that “of course” they’ve been stonewalled?

          Think about that.

          They’ve presented totally solid, evidence-based recommendations for increasing wildland fire-fighter safety and they’ve been completely stone-walled.

          You can see that for yourself on their website. They have their correspondence with the above-mentioned agencies posted there.

          Reply

          • You can make the 10 and 18’s, standard operating guidelines and procedures, acronyms for people to remember safety tricks(LACES), however it will all be for not if the personnel feel that its “hillbilly guidance”.

            Young fire fighters seem to think they are immortal, invincible and sterile… I don’t know if its a macho thing or trying to fit into a crew that may have been described as “hard asses”…

            Until all of the rules are followed, to a “t”, fire fighters will still perish…

            Unfortunately…

            Reply

      • “If the families did NOT address this part of the whole ‘tragedy’… and make it a REQUIREMENT that future incidents are ‘better investigated’…

        …then, in essence, they just wasted all that time and energy.”

        Exactly.

        Reply

    • Amen.

      Also it was very pleasant to hear Roxanne and Debra speak today.
      Thank you for the links WWTKTT!

      Sonny says fifteen million+ donated for the loved ones of the GMHS- add one million to make the state memorial park a training center for current and future firefighters.

      Save lives from those lost.

      I am finally back to try and upload the information but last time the legion did not work—plus Sonny had rough day and he is on a barley diet for the moment to kill or ease the pain at the legion

      Reply

      • Please tell Sonny, from the bottom of my heart, if you have to transport yourself inside of you mind to a really awesome and beautiful place far away from all of this insanity, in order to allow yourself to heal…….

        ……..just do it. You are needed.

        Reply

      • “add one million to make the state memorial park a training center for current and future firefighters.”

        I totally agree. Does anybody have any idea how to make that happen?

        State Parks just paid about $300K for the land. (Thank you, Maughan™ and The Widows.Inc for not getting in the way of that).

        That means they have about $200K left in their coffers. They’ll need that for putting in that (possibly inadequate, all things considered) 3 mile hardcorely uphill trail into the site.

        Come on, Maughan™, give it up, already!

        I don’t see where any kind of funding for anything more than just making the site “visitable” is. OTOH I don’t see where that kind of funding has been necessary for the Storm King site to have been made really really useful for teaching the things that fire needed to teach.

        I’m just really really really glad, sitting here at my computer tonight, after the dismal news about the settlement, that Arizona State Parks was able to grab hold of that section of hallowed land with no contest. That speaks a few volumes to me.

        Reply

  29. Mr. Shitsack said, “All of that, in addition to the two reports that have been issued, have been subject, nationwide, to theorists… to conspiracists… to who killed Martin Luther King… and right now, for the families, in THIS litigation, their concern, and their singular concern, was working with Jeff ( Whitney ), and working with Mark, and working with Governor Ducey to get in an optimal position so they can have a modicum of peace and understanding.”

    I don’t know about the rest of you people (conspiracy theorists like me), but I take great satisfaction in knowing that Mr. Shitsack has been reading our not so little blog and there is no doubt in my mind that he is still reading it to evaluate our response to his ridiculous lies and assorted bullshit.

    Therefore, I am proud to announce one more time for the public record to be memorialized here for as long as there is an internet and John Dougherty doesn’t hit the delete button, that I, Gary L. Olson do hereby state and affirm that according to my information and belief that Pat McGroder is without a doubt a certified Grade A Extra Large Shitsack, further your affiant sayeth not, on this date June 30, in the year of our Lord, 2015.

    Reply

  30. This Arizona settlement is baffling me. It is nothing for the families. I hope all the other monies from pensions and other settlements meet their needs because the State of Arizona sure isn’t looking after them. Donut should be ashamed of himself for keeping his mouth shut along with a lot of other firefighters that terrible day.

    Reply

    • John—Have you herd or seen anything about this 32 point settlement agreement that the State is going to respond to. It seems some one should have asked what it is and will it be released to the public.

      That seems to be the settling point on part of the Lessons learned.
      The Families were never fully vested in the money settlement as much as to the truth they still may get that as there is some indication of more information to come.

      My information from a family member said they also had a considerable amount of info the Lawyers had found that was new and not in any investigation. So I am sure there was a lot of pressure being put on by the Families Attorneys to pressure the State. to tell all in this Lessons learned even without Naming Names.

      I hope we have more to come here from the State.

      Reply

      • Reply to Bob Powers post on June 30, 2015 at 1:52 pm

        >> Bob Powers said…
        >>
        >> My information from a family member said they also had a
        >> considerable amount of info the Lawyers had found that was
        >> new and not in any investigation.

        I certainly hope, after all this time the lawyers spent on this, that that is the case.

        Any word from your sources whether the families are now under some kind of ‘gag’ order to NOT TALK ABOUT what they may have heard / learned… or they don’t get the money?

        >> Bob Powers also said…
        >>
        >> I hope we have more to come here from the State.

        Yes… but from the FAMILIES, too.

        I hope we just aren’t entering a ‘new phase’ here where everything that IS known, but not public yet, is all tied up with ‘gag’ orders related to settlement sums.

        What would be great, at this point, is if the families themselves would now hold their OWN press conference… and allow a long Q/A session… and be allowed to tell the ‘story’ of the negotiations themselves and what THEY might now know about how their loved ones died.

        Reply

        • Followup…

          Actually… if the family members really did learn a lot more than has ever been released to the public during the course of these court proceedings and negotiations… but also had to agree NOT TO TALK as part of the settlement…

          I actually hope some ( or all ) of them remain true to their word that it was “never about the money”… that it was always about TRUTH and CHANGE… and just come out and talk. anyway, about all the things they may now know that Arizona Forestry still doesn’t want them talking about.

          Look at it this way.

          If all they are getting is a measly $50,000… then which is going to stand the better chance of “saving other firefighter’s lives in the future”?

          – Keeping their mouths shut about what they now know and just donating the $50K to the Arizona Wildfire Academy for ‘scholarships’, or something else just as mundane?

          – OR saying “the heck with the $50K… here’s what really happened and here’s what all other firefighters can now actually learn from this tragedy”?

          My pick would be “door number two”.

          Reply

          • I wish they would offer me $50,000 minus court costs, attorneys fees and taxes (?) to quit posting on this blog, I would love to tell them to roll that check up into a little ball and stick it…well, you know the rest.

            If I was in the same room with someone who offered me that amount of money (or any amount of money without the other demands being met) to go away for the death of my child in one the most horrible ways imaginable due to the complete incompetence and negligence of their employees (Marsh and Steed worked for the state on that fire), it would be a really, really ugly scene, I shit you not!

            Reply

            • Reply to Gary Olson post June 30, 2015 at 8:11 pm

              >> Gary Olson said…
              >>
              >> I wish they would offer me $50,000 minus court
              >> costs, attorneys fees and taxes (?) to quit posting
              >> on this blog,

              That is actually a ‘spot on’ summation of what happened with this ‘settlement’.

              The ‘settlement’ has essentially said…

              “Here’s a lousy $50,000 and some vague promises. Now quit trying to find out what really happened”.

              Yes, I know, there is this mysterious “Lessons Learned” document that’s supposed to magically appear ( written by WHO? )… and Whitney has promised to try and get ‘staff ride’ going ( whoopee shit… that was going to happen no matter what ) and also promised some kind of vague Q/A ‘get togethers’ at undetermined times and under undetermined circumstances…

              …. and Yes, I know, McGroder’s mantra during the press conference was “We are comfortable with the promises made by Mr. Whitney”…

              But I still think the ultimate goal on the Arizona Forestry side was to just make sure no one was ever going to be called to any kind of witness stand. That was ( and still is ) their ‘worst nightmare’.

              >> Gary Olson also said…
              >>
              >> I would love to tell them to roll that check up into a
              >> little ball and stick it…well, you know the rest.

              And to continue what I think is your ‘spot on’ analogy of what has happened here.. the equivalent moment for the familes would have been…

              “It isn’t about the money. It’s about the TRUTH. Thank you for the offer but we will see you in court… and guess what?… it really ISN’T about the money and we don’t even care if we LOSE. What we need to know ( and what everyone still needs to know, firefighters included ) will come out DURING the trial.”

              That didn’t happen… and that’s too bad.

              Win or lose… the ‘families’ just ‘gave up’ the best ‘instrument’ they had for getting what they actually wanted.

              Reply

    • Reply to John post on June 30, 2015 at 1:22 pm

      >> John said…
      >>
      >> This Arizona settlement is baffling me. It is nothing for the families.

      Correct. Basically pittance on the financial side and ( apparently ) nothing but vague ‘promises’ from Arizona State Forester Jeff Whitney.

      Whitney has ( apparently ) promised to just “meet with the families somewhere, sometime, somehow, maybe a staff ride, maybe not” and “answer their questions”.

      Seriously?

      Is this actually CODIFIED in the agreements?

      Are there any sanctions or penalites if Whitney just keeps his answering machine on saying “I’m sorry… I’m out of the office right now. Please leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can”?

      I seriously hope this “promise” that attorney for the plaintiffs Patrick McGroder kept referring back to like it was a MANTRA during the press conference actually IS codified in the settlement somewhere… and isn’t just Whitney saying “Yea…. sure… I’ll talk to them sometime, somewhere”.

      >> John also said…
      >>
      >> I hope all the other monies from pensions and other settlements meet
      >> their needs because the State of Arizona sure isn’t looking after them.

      Correct… even though the Arizona Attorney General’s office lawyers who were assigned to the case(s) have admitted in their own documents filed in the case that there is NO QUESTION that ALL of the deceased were “working for them” at the time of their death.

      Lesson Learned: Think twice ( and three times and four times ) about ever doing ANY contract work for Arizona Forestry.

      >> John also said…
      >>
      >> Donut should be ashamed of himself for keeping his mouth shut along
      >> with a lot of other firefighters that terrible day.

      According to Brendan… it’s all about “man love”.

      It ( apparently? ) justifies his behavior in his own mind.

      Brendan McDonough is still describing his ‘occupation’ on his PUBLIC Facebook page as “Public Figure”, and he did his own home-grown version of a ‘press release’ today with ‘a statement’.

      https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=489455674554629

      Brendan said…
      ———————————————————–
      Facebook – June 30, 2013

      Not a day that’s doesn’t go by that I’m not reminded of my brothers. You did more for me than I could ever explain. No words can be said for how grateful and blessed I am to have you in my life. Your legacy continues to guide me spiritually, emotionally and physically. There’s no greater love than man love.
      ———————————————————–

      The PHOTO that accompanies this ‘statement’ is that one of himself and his GM crewmates forming that ‘pyramid’ near the Juniper Tree.

      Also doesn’t sound like the same guy who came crawling to Darrell Willis and said he couldn’t take the guilt of withholding crucial information from investigators anymore and he needed to “get something off his chest”.

      That was before the publicly announced book deal, of course.

      There are no more active court cases at the moment.

      And there probably won’t be unless the Property Damage lawsuit appeal overturns the Judge’s decision that Arizona Forestry never has one atomic molecule of duty or responsibility to protect any piece of property, at any time, anywhere.

      So there are no “constraints” whatsoever on Brendan McDonough now for simply speaking freely about what happened except the ‘financial’ ones he might have agreed to as part of the ‘book deal’.

      Reply

      • Correction for above. I typed the wrong YEAR on the date line.

        The Facebook ‘statement’ Brendan published is from TODAY, June 30, 2015, and
        not ‘2013’.

        The statement on his PUBLIC Facebook page actually reads like this…

        Brendan said…
        ———————————————————–
        Facebook – June 30, 2015

        Not a day that’s doesn’t go by that I’m not reminded of my brothers. You did more for me than I could ever explain. No words can be said for how grateful and blessed I am to have you in my life. Your legacy continues to guide me spiritually, emotionally and physically. There’s no greater love than man love.
        ———————————————————–

        Reply

  31. **
    ** DEPLOYMENT SITE SOLD TO ARIZONA STATE PARKS

    Disaster was avoided this morning. Arizona Parks was the ONLY bidder on the
    south half of Section 9, Township 10 North, Range 05 West where the Granite
    Mountain deployment site is located.

    They got the land for the ‘fair market value’ price of $304,000.

    And a good thing, too. That was actually the maximum amount Arizona State Parks was allowed ( by law ) to bid for that piece of land… and if anyone had bid the next valid increment of $314,000… they would have lost it.

    AZCENTRAL
    Yarnell fire anniversary: Site of future state park sold
    Published: 12 p.m. MST June 30, 2015 by Amy B. Wang
    http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2015/06/30/prescott-yarnell-hill-fire-hotshots-anniversary/29487645/

    From the article…
    ——————————————————
    The memorial activities Tuesday, on the second anniversary of the fire that killed the Granite Mountain Hotshots, began with an auction both significant and largely symbolic.

    At 11 a.m., representatives from the state Land Department gathered at the Yavapai County Courthouse in Prescott to offer a plot of land for sale. The 320-acre parcel encompasses the site where the 19 Prescott-based firefighters died in the Yarnell Hill fire.

    A representative from the state parks board selected the number 19 for her placard. When bidding opened at $304,000, she placed the first, and only, bid.

    The auctioneer read her number twice. Then, the deal was done.

    Because the land is owned by the state, it must, by law, be sold at public auction. But the winning bid guaranteed the spot would be preserved, as the future Granite Mountain Hotshots Memorial State Park.
    ——————————————————

    Reply

  32. **
    ** NEW YORK TIMES REPORT ON THE SETTLEMENT

    I’m still not seeing any public copies of the actual documents surrounding the ‘settlement’ that was publicly announced yesterday… but apparently someone at the New York Times has obtained copies of them and is reporting on things that are in them.

    Such as some kind of bizarre “We’re still not saying anybody did anything wrong… but boy did we screw up” section.

    The New York Times
    Arizona Settles Cases With Relatives of 19 Who Died Fighting Wildfire
    Published: JUNE 29, 2015 By FERNANDA SANTOS
    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/us/arizona-reaches-settlements-with-kin-of-19-who-died-fighting-wildfire.html?_r=0

    From the article…
    ———————————————————————————-
    The agreements capped more than a year of discussions involving the families, their lawyer, forestry officials and the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health, which conducted an investigation that revealed the chaos in the hours before the firefighters’ deaths.

    While the pacts do not hold the forestry agency formally responsible for the deaths, they give the families some vindication with a critical assessment of the commanders’ decision making.

    According to one of the settlements, the commanders “failed to re-evaluate, re-prioritize and update fire suppression strategies and plans after fire behavior and weather conditions dramatically changed,” exposing firefighters to “serious hazards” posed by fierce, fast-moving flames. They mostly left the firefighters to fend for themselves as an approaching thunderstorm pushed the fire their way.
    ———————————————————————————-

    Reply

    • Shades of the ADOSH.

      Seems to me the two main factors that haven’t been covered yet are 1) the human factors most recently summarized by you and Gary and others, that imo there’s no way will get covered frankly in a lessons-learned doc (not even the “learn to speak when spoken to” review that is an objectively know fact with big behavioral and communication implications), and 2) better time trials on rate of travel. For this 2) on the one hand getting some true harder numbers for various types of vegetation and inclines up and down could be useful for others, but on the other hand, but for this fire it would likely be a distraction imo. Better to have someone else do this in a neutral context. Reason being, with the existing weather and other variables that we now know were known, imo it was known at the time the descent began that this would be a close one. The human factors that led to a decision to do something where danger was already recognized, while leaving a position of much greater safety, are the keys here, along with the original hiring policies and decisions in establishing the crew.

      Reply

        • >> Gary Olson asked…
          >>
          >> What does imo stand for?

          IMO = “In My Opinion”
          IMHO = “In My Humble Opinion”

          It’s just DOCOMO text shorthand stuff.

          DOCOMO = Where ‘texting’ came from. Started in Japan. They were the first ones to notice there were ’empty packets’ in the standard digitial cellphone protocol and they found a way to fit characters into the packets and so ‘texting’ was born… but they could only fit about 140 characters.

          That’s why you don’t need a ‘data plan’ with your cellphone just to do texting. Unlike email and stuff ( which is Internet stuff and needs a data connection ), DOCOMO ‘texting’ fits into the same packets being used to do the voice transmissions.

          Sorry… more than you wanted to know, I’m sure.

          Lifelong habit. Ask me what time it is and I tend to try to tell you how to build a watch.

          Reply

          • No, actually, it wasn’t more than I wanted to know, I am trying to figure this stuff out as I go along, I have really trying to figure out the hash tag thing, but…

            Reply

            • Well then… speaking of ‘hash tags’…

              Until ‘Twitter’ came along that was just known as the ‘pound sign’ on your keyboard.

              The REASON that ‘Twitter’ is like ‘Texting’ and only allows a minimal amount of ‘characters’ in any one message is because the whole frickin’ Twitter codebase thing is nothing but a failed programming project that was based on ( you guessed it ) ‘cellphone texting’.

              Once the whole orgininal ‘Twitter’ project turned into a disaster and was about to go into the toilet… somebody decided to do their own “Hail Mary’ play with the codebase and just bring it up on ‘regular Internet’.

              Lo and behold ( Whooda thunk it )… they found out that most people never have anything more to say than something fits into 140 characters, anyway.

              And the rest is history.

              Entire generations growing up now have the idea that a ‘conversation’ consists of short bursts of statements less than 140 characters.

              Reply

  33. **
    ** ATTORNEY PAT MCGRODER ISSUES A PUBLIC PLEA ASKING USFS TO LET THE
    ** BLUE RIDGE HOTSHOTS SPEAK FREELY ABOUT THE YARNELL INCIDENT

    The Press Conference today was carried LIVE by TV Channel FOX10 in Phoenix, and they have now uploaded a video of the entire press conference to a public YouTube page.

    The Settlement Press Conference itself ( 45 minutes and 33 seconds )…

    YouTube title: FNN: Yarnell Hill Fire Settlement Press Conference
    Posted by YouTube User: FOX 10 Phoenix
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7GASJl5T6Q

    I have almost finished a full transcript of the entire press conference, and I will upload that soon… but some very interesting things were said near the end of the press conference that aren’t showing up in any of the MSM news reports.

    Example 1: Arizona State Forester Jeff Whitney was answering a question from a reporter and he alluded to a ‘new document’ that is supposed to be generated following this settlement. He called it a “Lessons Learned” document.

    Example 2: A reporter asked direct questions about both Brendan McDonough AND the Blue Ridge Hotshots… and attorney for the plaintiffs ( Pat McGroder ) took those questions. He says that McDonough will do whatever he wants… and is ‘irrelevant’… and McGroder then makes a public ‘plea’ to the Blue Ridge Hotshots to start talking freely about the incident.

    From the Press Conference video at the link above…
    ————————————————————————————-
    +36:00

    ( A question is being asked by a reporter which cannot be heard but it was referencing the original Serious Accident Investigation Report ).

    +36:20
    ( Jeff Whitney, Arizona State Forester that succeeded Scott Hunt ):

    Uh… I think you may mis-characterize the posture and the findings of the Serious Accident Investigation. Um… The Wildland fire community is… uh… a large one. Uh… I have an opportunity in my position to… uh… carry the… the banner and the interest that all in the Wildland community desire in terms of firefighter and public safety… uh… but I think I can bring… as we develop a “Lessons Learned”… uh… document out of this and prepare and provide a staff ride that we’re gonna be able to provide a learning opportunity… uh… to… to take it to that extent. Thank you.

    +37:05

    ( Another question is asked by a reporter but also cannot be heard. It appears to be asking about Brendan McDonough AND the Blue Ridge Hotshots, and whether they will still be required to testify openly about what they know. )

    (Pat McGroder, Attorney for the plaintiffs ): I’ll answer that question.

    Uh… at some time… uh… Mr. McDonough may or may not chose to publicy describe what he saw… what he heard that day.

    Uh… Mr. McDonough has an attorney at this point in time.

    But in terms of today… whether it be Mr. McDonough or the Blue Ridge firefighters… the purpose of today was to let YOU know the enormity of the commitment that State Forester Whitney has made to sit down with our families… at great lengths and great expense… and answer their questions, describe what happened… whether it be informally or formally… or in the case of a… a ‘ride’.

    So we’re very comfortable in terms of the commitment to the State Forester.

    This litigation was in State Court. It was not… well… it was originally in State Court but wound up in Federal Court.

    The Arizona… strike that… the National Forest Service was not a defendant in the case.

    Uh… had the case gone forward, could we have commanded… uh… depositions?… testimony?… Absolutely.

    But… echoing Dennis’ thought…

    The IDEA… the IDEA that the Federal Government is withholding information…

    The IDEA that ANYONE would withhold information from these families…

    Uh… is… it… it really speaks to the lack of understanding and empathy and dignity that they should have for these families.

    So… we would PUBLICLY call for the Blue Ridge Mountain folks and the National Forest Service to let their people talk.

    However… at this point in time… we’re dealing with families that have suffered the utmost of tragedies… and we are very comfortable in terms of the commitments that the State Forester has made to render information to us within HIS purview.

    Mr. McDonough is irrelevant to this press conference today.

    ( Another question is asked from a reporter but it is not audible ).

    (Pat McGroder): Well… let me straighten your ass out, Howard.

    First of all.. there ARE published, public reports… on both sides of the ledger.

    State Forester and ADOSH.

    Those reports were generated by interviews, uh… by expert testimony, etcetera, etcetera.

    And obviously, depending on which lawyer you talk to, those reports were diametrically opposed.

    The problem we have here in terms of whether or not, Howard, we will ever know exactly what happened… those that can tell us… those who can speak to it.. are in heaven… and we don’t have an opportunity to talk to them.

    At the time and place, Mr. McDonough decides to talk… obviously we will take that into consideration.

    But the overriding scientific issues… whether it be weather, whether it be communications or lack thereof… whether it be issues regarding Incident Command and things of that nature…

    All of that, in addition to the two reports that have been issued, have been subject, nationwide, to theorists… to conspiracists… to who killed Martin Luther King… and right now, for the families, in THIS litigation, their concern, and their singular concern, was working with Jeff ( Whitney ), and working with Mark, and working with Governor Ducey to get in an optimal position so they can have a modicum of peace and understanding.

    And Jeff ( Whitney ) has committed to do that and we are comfortable with Jeff’s commitment to do that.

    Now… whether or not… uh… the Federal Government decides to HIDE again as they did in another one of my cases, fast and furious, we’ll see.

    Uh… but at the end of the day… uh… I am comfortable that to the extent there are FACTS out there that we may or may not know… or a spin on those facts that we may or may not know… that information will be forthcoming.

    Thank you all for coming.
    —————————————————————————————–

    Reply

    • WTKTT,

      Thank you, thank you so much, that was wonderful, that was a real hoot. Pat McGroder is a real shit bag in a world full of shit bags. Priceless.

      Reply

      • Whoops, bad typo. I meant to say

        Thank you, thank you so much, that was wonderful, that was a real hoot. Pat McGroder is a VERY SPECIAL shit bag in a world full of REGULAR shit bags. Priceless.

        Reply

          • My thoughts—We got little of the Lessons learned from 2 Investigations.

            Do they actually have information dug up from both sides that will shed light on Lessons Learned?

            With out Blue Ridge Talking can they confirm any of those Lessons learned. They are quite imbedded in this Story.

            The Families seem to have stuck to there need for the truth buy getting a release of the facts on both sides in a State release of Lessons Learned.

            I Guess I am Skeptical of an all seeing all knowing all telling document
            but we shall see. My real hope is that the Families get the full truth and that there is real lessons learned by Wild Land Fire Fighters.
            All of us need a reliable Honest answer.

            Rest in Peace Granit Mountain 19 on the day of the second Anniversary.
            And Peace be with all the Families.

            Hold on to the good memories they will carry you the rest of your lives as my memories have carried me.

            WE WILL NEVER FORGET——–

            Reply

            • Reply to Bob Powers post on June 30, 2015 at 6:32 am

              >> Bob Powers said…
              >>
              >> My thoughts—We got little of the Lessons learned
              >> from 2 Investigations.

              Well… in the FIRST investigation there wasn’t even any ‘little’ about it. There was NOTHING. “No one did anything wrong… move along… move along”.

              19 men dead… and no one did anything wrong.

              Lesson Learned: Shit just happens… God had a different plan for those men. Get over it. Move on.

              That’s what pissed EVERYONE off ( Firefighters and Non-firefighters alike ).

              >> Bob Powers also said…
              >>
              >> Do they actually have information dug up from
              >> both sides that will shed light on Lessons Learned?

              If by ‘they’ you mean the plaintiffs… I don’t think so… and that is what surprised me. A team of lawyers working for them for almost a year-and-a-half and my impression is that those lawyers don’t know any more about what happened than what they have been reading in the newspapers.

              In other words… NO attempt seems to have ever been made on THEIR part ( McGroder and his other two assistants ) to interview ANY of the dozens of people even WE have identified here as either never being interviewed at all ( Dozer operator Paul Morin, Jason Clawson, Aaron Hulburd, KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell, Blue Ridge Hotshot Ronald Gamble, the THREE other Blue Ridge Hotshots that were moving the GM vehicles and probably heard everything this squirrelly McDonough guy heard, the elusive Air Attack Rory Collins, yada, yada, yada ) or that we identified as needing to be re-interviewed with some pretty specific questions.

              And that’s just the SHORT LIST.

              There’s a lot of other ‘prep-work’ I was just assuming these attorneys had been doing themselves ( as in… their own investigative work ) that appears to have been totally blown off.

              At least that’s the impression Mr. McGroder gave at that short press conference.

              Throughout the press conference ( and the questions that followed ), this McGroder guy kept coming back to the ‘mantra’ he had decided to be humming for this public appearance.

              “We are comfortable with the commitment from Arizona State Forester Jeff Whitney to get together with the plaintiffs some way, somehow, to be announced, and supposedly answer some of their questions that fall into HIS purview”.

              What kind of horseshit is that?

              Is that some kind of tacit admission ( as you just surmised ) that Arizona Forestry has ALWAYS known more and they have ALWAYS been withholding that information and now that they know they aren’t going to get their little-boy asses paddled… they are “willing to share that information”?

              It’s still hard to hear but I believe that was basically the question a reporter was asking State Forester Jeff Whitney during the press conference. Something along the lines of…

              “So are you basically now admitting that the original SAIT investigation was nothing but a coverup??

              Whitney looked like a frickin’ deer in the headlights throughout the press conference and all he said back to the reporter was…

              “I think you mis-characterize the nature of the SAIT document”.

              >> Bob Powers said…
              >>
              >>
              >> With out Blue Ridge Talking can they confirm any
              >> of those Lessons learned. They are quite imbedded
              >> in this Story.

              Yes, they are.

              And even if McDonough ‘disappears’ ( highly likely )… those 3 Blue Ridge Hotshots who were also moving the GM vehicles still most likely heard everything Brendan did… both GM intra-crew and TAC channel traffic included.

              That seemed to actually be the attitude that McGroder came into the press conference with.

              McGroder basically said…

              “Screw this slippery McDonough character. He’s “irrelevant to this press conference”.. but I’m sending out a PUBLIC PLEA to the USFS to let their people talk”.

              It’s hard to tell whether McGroder was including Prescott Natioanl Forest employees Jason Clawson, Aaron Hulburd and KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell in there… along with the Blue Ridge Hotshots… and even Thomas French and John Burfiend ( who ADOSH was also never able to interview )… or even the ever-elusive Air Attack Rory Collins…

              …but it sounded like it.

              >> Bob Powers also said…
              >>
              >> The Families seem to have stuck to there need for
              >> the truth buy getting a release of the facts on both
              >> sides in a State release of Lessons Learned.

              I disagree.

              I think the families “caved”.

              And by ‘families’ I also get the impression that this Deborah Pfingston woman was almost literally “running the show” on the plaintiffs side of the table. She has that kind of personality.

              I also think we were RIGHT and all the delays and postponements were about Brendan McDonough.

              I mean… just LOOK at the terms of the settlement itself.

              There is NOTHING in there ( that we know of so far ) that should have taken all the various postponements and delays to come up with. It’s just a namby-pamby list of “if you do this ( drop the fines and any attempt to assign blame )… then we’ll do this ( implement some changes and write some document )”.

              Nah. My feeling is that ALL of the delays were still in the hopes that this slippery McDonough guy was going to finally do what he should have always done from day one… tell the TRUTH and tell the ‘whole story’ of he saw/heard/knows.

              But during the last 30 days… it looks like McDonough’s attorney David Shapiro was just doing HIS job and keeping his client “off the stand” until if/when there was an actual trial.

              So the families “caved”.

              They had Arizona Forestry “on the ropes”.
              They were “running the show” here.

              But they “balked” and went for the settlement itself.

              I think that’s a shame.

              There are too many people involved here that would have ONLY told the truth if they were dragged into a courtroom kicking and screaming. That’s how much “character” THEY have.

              I wish the families had proceeded to trial.

              I still think after all the additional depositions were taken and/or people who still know things had been called to the stand and faced jail time for not finally talking…

              …they would have “mopped the floor” with Arizona Forestry and gotten everything THEY wanted… INCLUDING the REAL TRUTH about what happened that day.

              All they have now is an outside chance they MIGHT get the REAL TRUTH. That’s too bad.

              >> Bob Powers also said…
              >>
              >> I Guess I am Skeptical of an all seeing all knowing
              >> all telling document but we shall see.

              We still have no idea what this mysterious ( new? ) “Lessons Learned” document is that both plaintiff spokeswoman Deborah Pfingston and State Forestry Jeff Whitney seem to be talking about.

              It could end up being written just like the SAIR and just say things that even SAIR Co-Lead Mike Dudley admitted to believing… but never put it in his SAIR document.

              Stuff like…

              “Yea… it’s probably a bad idea to have a DIVS ordering his resources all over the damn place over a PRIVATE Hotshot intra-crew radio frequency so no one else has a clear understanding what that resource is ACTUALLY doing or the chance for any input if they are making a stupid mistake”.

              Lesson Learned: Try not to do that.

              >> Bob Powers also said…
              >>
              >> My real hope is that the Families get the full truth

              Me too… but they ‘families’ just basically “gave up” on their absolute BEST chance to achieve that goal.

              I think that’s a shame.

              >> Bob Powers also said…
              >>
              >> and that there is real lessons learned by Wild Land
              >> Fire Fighters

              I’m still not sure WFFs know WHAT lessons to actually take away from this greatest BLUNDER in the history of Wildland Firefighting … but how much you want to bet that out there, already, at morning briefings somewhere on an active fire… some supervisors aren’t also telling the crews they are sending into harm’s way…

              “Oh… and one more thing… nobody do a ‘Granite Mountain’ out there today, okay?”

              …and somehow…the crews know what that means.

              >> Bob Power also said…
              >>
              >>.All of us need a reliable Honest answer.

              Yes.. because ALL of us were asked to mourn these men, and to send money, and to grieve, and to follow all these bullshit shenanigans as we watched men who are supposed to have courage hide behind lawyers and their own fears.

              This truly has been “the world is watching”… but someone forgot to make that clear to the dinosaurs who run this WFF business.

              >> Bob Powers also said…
              >>
              >> Rest in Peace Granite Mountain 19 on the day of the
              >> second anniversary. And Peace be with all the Families.
              >>
              >> Hold on to the good memories they will carry you
              >> the rest of your lives as my memories have carried me.
              >>
              >> WE WILL NEVER FORGET——–

              What you said.

              Reply

      • Reply to Gary Olson post on June 30, 2015 at 2:58 am

        >> Gary Olson said…
        >>
        >> WTKTT,
        >> Thank you, thank you so much, that was wonderful, that was a real hoot.
        >> Pat McGroder is a real shit bag in a world full of shit bags. Priceless.

        Just ONE of his “Master Card / Priceless” moments was when he compared all the ‘theorizing’ and ‘speculation’ about what really happened that day to “Who killed Martin Luther King”.

        I’ve got a ‘news flash’ for Mr. McGroder.

        We really DO know who killed Martin Luther King…

        …and it only got “figured out” after a lot of ‘theorizing’ and ‘speculation’. combined with some damn good investigative work.

        Reply

  34. **
    ** FAMILIES AGREE TO SETTLE ‘WRONGFUL DEATH’ LAWSUITS

    Breaking news ( on June 29, 2015 ).

    The families have agreed to settle the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits.

    The State of Arizona will pay the family of each of the 19 deceased Hotshots just $50,000.

    FOX10 – Phoenix
    Families, Arizona settle suit in deaths of 19 firefighters
    Posted: Jun 29, 2015 1:25 PM CDT Updated: Jun 29, 2015 7:04 PM CDT
    http://www.fox10phoenix.com/story/29433896/settlement-appears-close-in-yarnell-hill-fire-lawsuit

    Reply

    • Correction for above.

      Only 12 of the families of the 19 were actually part of the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits.
      Only these 12 will get a lump sum $50,000 payment from Arizona Forestry.

      The “Arizona vs. ADOSH” court proceeding is now also ‘cancelled’.
      As part of the ‘settlement’… Arizona Forestry has agreed to drop their appeal of the ADOSH findings, accept the findings, and just pay the fines.

      As part of paying those fines… Arizona Forestry has also agreed to pay just $10,000 to each of the other SEVEN families who were NOT part of the ‘wrongful death’ suits.

      Here is the complete text that accompanies the article at FOX10 – Phoenix…

      —————————————————–
      PHOENIX (AP) — A dozen families who lost members when a Hotshot firefighting crew was overcome by a wildfire near the small community of Yarnell have settled a suit they filed against the state of Arizona.

      The settlement announced Monday by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich will pay the families $50,000 each. Some vowed to donate the money to a new wildland firefighter safety foundation.

      A second part of the agreement ends a state Forestry Division appeal of nearly $560,000 in fines issued by the Arizona’s workplace safety agency. The state agreed to enhanced safety training for wildland fire crews and will pay the other seven families $10,000 each.

      The 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots died on June 30, 2013 while fighting a fire about 80 miles northwest of Phoenix.
      ——————————————————————

      So it looks like Brendan McDonough will never be deposed ‘under oath’.

      There are now no more active court proceedings that can call him to testify.

      Reply

        • See (public) statement below from Deborah Pfingston ( mother of Andrew Ashcraft ).

          She seems to suggest that Brendan has already ‘secretly testified’ since the previous May 28 deposition got cancelled… OR that his “testifying”, once and for all, is actually part of the settlement itself.

          They are still playing games and just “hinting” at things here.

          Reply

          • Followup… scratch my comment above. The AZCENTRAL article has now appeared and it includes a interview with Patrick McGroder, attorney for the families.

            He seems to make it clear that Brendan was NOT secretly deposed in the ‘cone of silence’ since the THIRD attempt to depose him… nor are there any plans for him to make any more statements whatsoever.

            So what you said above. It’s all about his ‘book’ now… and ( cha-ching ) the price ( and his cut ) just went UP.

            Reply

            • Well…it goes against my personality to say I told you so…but I told you so.

              Of course I was always hoping for them, but fighting the government is a really, really, really hard thing to do as I have been saying all along, although I was hoping fighting the state of Arizona might be easier than fighting the federal government, but that was not the case.

              I have also been saying that the name of the game for everybody with deep pockets is never to admit ANY wrong doing, period. I have also been saying that making any changes in how willdland firefighting is fought, was always a pipe dream, especially since as I have said many times, the Arizona Division of Forestry is just too small of a player in the game. So that was never to be.

              And other than the fact that I am a Terminal Asshole, my main reason to point all of this out by saying “I told you so” is to highlight that if anybody wants ANY change to come out this disaster, this is the only game in town and this thread is all but being ignored except for a few diehard bloggers and viewers.

              I would like to see some of the families get behind what we are trying to do here, IF…they want any measure of truth or any changes, those things will come out of this thread or from nowhere and if more of those who are, or were on the inside don’t help us more, we don’t have much of a chance here either.

              Reply

              • Oh…and one more thing, that settlement obviously fits into the category of a “nuisance” settlement that any good attorney representing the government will do to make a nuisance lawsuit go away.

                The attorneys representing those families did them a great injustice by not explaining all of this to them in the very beginning, and if the attorneys did explain it to them, then shame on those families for bringing a nuisance lawsuit IF they really weren’t prepared to go to the mattresses (The Godfather), after attorneys fees they won’t get squat for all of the drama, stress and heartache.

                They should have at least hung in there long enough to make that little rat bastard McDonut be deposed…SHIT!

                I have to have a lot of respect for the families that stayed clear of this disaster…on top of a disaster.

                Reply

                • Wow! A bunch of human excrement attorneys doing someone a disservice. Nobody could possibly see this coming…right?

                  Reply

      • Some quotes from the video at the FOX10 – Phoenix link above.

        Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, speaking at the press
        conference that was held this afternoon to announce the settlement…

        “The agencies aren’t admitting ANY sort of guilt or negligence… because, frankly,
        that wasn’t the goal, ultimately, of all of our parties. Um… ya know… we have
        another motto around here and that’s ‘don’t fix blame… fix the problem'”.

        Reporter: The Families of the fallen firefighters said it really wasn’t about the money. It was about sending a message and making sure this sort of thing never happens again.

        Then Deborah Pfingston ( mother of Andrew Ashcraft ) said ( at the podium )…

        “We still have work on the horizon. The ‘Lessons Learned’… the TRUTH about
        the deaths of our sons, husbands and fathers WILL be coming”.

        That’s all she said. ( on camera, anyway ).

        She herself emphasized the “WILL be coming” part.

        So what the fuck is that supposed to mean?

        Does that mean that Brendan McDonough is not really ‘off the hook’ here, and
        part of the ‘settlement’ itself is some kind of promise that he will finally do what
        he should have always done in the first place and tell the TRUTH and the ‘whole
        story’ of what he knows?

        Or does it mean that within the last few weeks… they worked out the consternation that cause the cancellation of the May 28 deposition… and somehow Brendan has now already ‘secretly testified’ under-oath… and that’s what has actually led to this ‘settlement’?

        Reply

        • I don’t know, but that sounds to me like putting lipstick on a pig, calling it your date and buying it dinner.

          Those statements from Deborah Pfingston, and I am truly sorry for her loss, but those statements remind me of President Nixon withdrawing from Vietnam with his Peace With Honor declarations, and then they has to push all of the helicopters off the deck of the aircraft carrier to make room for more U.S. Embassy officials running for their lives.

          Reply

      • The AZCENTRAL story about today’s ‘settlement’…

        AZCENTRAL
        Yarnell Hill Fire lawsuits settle for $670,000, reforms
        Published: 2:40 p.m. MST June 29, 2015 by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez
        http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2015/06/29/yarnell-hill-fire-lawsuits-settlement-press-conference/29463359/

        From the article…
        ————————————————————
        The settlement occurs without the testimony of Granite Mountain Hotshot Brendan McDonough, who barely escaped the firestorm that day and was the crew’s lone survivor.

        McDonough recently told the crew’s founder that he overheard a radio conversation between Eric Marsh, the crew’s supervisor who’d separated from the others to scout the fire, and Jesse Steed, Marsh’s top deputy. It it, Marsh is believed to have ordered the crew to leave their safety zone. The conversation is believed to have occurred shortly before the hotshots were overcome by flames.

        Attorneys for state forestry repeatedly sought McDonough’s testimony under oath, but a deposition never happened.

        When asked about the lack of deposition from McDonough, attorney McGroder replied, “I’m not sure anyone will have all the answers to what happened that day.”

        He continued, “Our position is, Mr. McDonough will do what he wants to do when he wants to do it, and that will be his decision.”
        ————————————————————

        So scratch what I said above about Deborah Pfingston seeming to indicate that Brendan had either already testified in secret during the now month-old ‘cone of silence’ surrounding the ALJ Hearing File… OR that his ‘deposition’ was actually still forthcoming and still part of the ‘settlement’.

        Attorney McGroder now seems to be making it clear that is NOT the case.

        Reply

        • **
          ** SETTLEMENT WAS ACTUALLY APPROVED BACK ON JUNE 18

          Another AZCENTRAL article that says the ‘settlement’ was actually ‘approved’ behind closed doors in the Arizona Joint Legislative Budget Committee back on June 18, 2015…

          http://myinforms.com/en/a/14255532-yarnell-hill-fire-lawsuits-settle-for-670000-reforms/

          From the article…
          ——————————————————-
          The Republic has learned a proposed settlement was approved by the Joint Legislative Budget Committee behind closed doors in executive session on June 18.
          ——————————————————

          So they’ve been “sitting on it” until today and were just timing the public announcement to coincide with the second anniversary of the tragedy.

          Reply

    • **
      ** ARIZONA FORESTRY DOES NOT HAVE TO PAY THE ADOSH FINE(S)

      The following article makes it clear that as part of today’s settlement… where Arizona Forestry has agreed to DROP their appeal of the $559,000 ADOSH fine for an unbelievably UNSAFE workplace on June 30, 2013… Arizona Forestry does NOT still have to pay the fine.

      As part of the “the deal”… ADOSH agreed to WITHDRAW the $559,000 fine in EXCHANGE for Arizona Forestry paying $10,000 to each of the SEVEN families that were not part of the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits.

      So Arizona Forestry got the ADOSH $559,000 fine whittled down to just $70,000.

      The Arizona Capitol Times

      Article Title: Families of perished Yarnell firefighters agree to
      substantially reduced settlement

      By: Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services June 29, 2015 , 5:31 pm

      http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2015/06/29/families-of-perished-yarnell-firefighters-agree-to-substantially-reduced-settlement/

      From the article…
      ——————————————————————
      Part of Monday’s deal includes the Industrial Commission dropping the maximum permissible $559,000 penalty it imposed on the state Forestry Division after the deaths, a penalty the state had challenged.

      The settlement reduces that to $70,000 – $10,000 for each of the seven families that did not sue. More significant, it cancels hearing set for later this year to determine whether violations of safety regulations led to the firefighters’ deaths.

      ———————————————————-

      Reply

    • The Prescott Daily Courier has chimed in…

      The Prescott Daily Courier
      Article Title: Parties involved in Hotshot wrongful-death lawsuit announce settlement
      Published: 6/29/2015 5:20:00 PM by Cindy Barks
      http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1087&ArticleID=147091

      From the article…
      ————————————————————————–
      Central to the settlement: A list of 32 changes that the Arizona
      State Forestry Division will either make, or has already made in
      the way it fights wildfires.
      ————————————————————————–

      I don’t see anyone actually reporting ( yet ) what these ’32 changes’ actually ARE.

      Reply

  35. So the land sale was yesterday at 11:00, who was the lucky bidder?

    Arizona Parks or the Widows or someone else???

    Cant find anything in the news.

    Reply

    • Reply to rocksteady post on June 29, 2015 at 10:30 am

      >> rocksteady said…
      >>
      >> So the land sale was yesterday at 11:00, who was the lucky bidder?

      Just echoing what Bob Powers said.

      The actual deployment site land auction isn’t until this Tuesday morning, June 30, 2015, at 11:00 AM on the steps of the Yavapai County Courthouse, on the morning of the official second anniversary itself.

      The memorial service / park dedication that happened yesterday ( June 28 ) in Yarnell was scheduled for Sunday, I believe, because of some of the speakers and guests who were there ( Like Darrell Willis, State Representative Karen Fann, etc. ). That was a ‘best fit’ for their schedules given they will probably be part of the other June 30 memorial service scheduled to take place in Prescott.

      There will be ANOTHER memorial ceremony at this same spot in Yarnell where yesterday’s ground-breaking took place this Tuesday, June 30, 2013. It takes place between 4:00 and 5:00 PM and includes observing the State-wide ‘moment of silence’ at exactly 4:43 PM.

      4:43 PM is one of the ‘accepted’ possible times for the deployment site burnover itself.

      Also… just making it clear that the ‘park dedication’ yesterday in Yarnell has nothing to do with the deployment site. It was the dedication of that empty lot in Yarnell itself at the corner of Shrine Road and Highway 89. That is a Yarnell thing only and doesn’t have anything to do with what the Arizona State Yarnell Hill Memorial Board is trying to do with the deployment site itself.

      Reply

      • Thanks for clearing it up.

        Been working 16 hours a day for a week on a fire, so not as sharp as I usually am. 🙂

        Reply

        • Well… if anyone asks you to take a shortcut through a blind box canyon filled with explosive fuel within less than a mile of an exploding, wind driven fireline and with no lookout…

          Please say “NO THANK YOU”.

          Reply

          • Not my first rodeo… 33 years in the job, never had that sort of silly thought. Presently doing FBAN on a type 1 incident trying to keep my boys and girls safe by hitting home fire behaviour messaging…

            Reply

  36. **
    ** NEWS FOOTAGE FROM TODAY’S SECOND ANNIVERSARY CEREMONY
    ** AND MEMORIAL PARK DEDICATION IN YARNELL

    KPHO/ KTVK / 3TV’s Jonathan Lowe’s video report with footage from today’s memorial ceremony and park dedication in Yarnell…

    http://raycomgroup.worldnow.com/story/29426644/19-hotshots-killed-in-yarnell-hill-fire-honored-on-2nd-anniversary

    At +2:18 into this video there is an interview with Lew Theokas, Peeples Valley resident and the grandfather of GM Hotshot Garret Zuppiger.

    Reply

  37. at memorial—names for the female puppy mascot were tossed out:
    Nellie for Yarnell
    Sweetie
    Honeybunch
    Junior
    Honest
    June
    Willis wife said “Bonita 19”
    Wild Willy
    cutie pie
    Willis
    Liberty
    Kid
    Lola
    Lily
    correction on earlier post—I posted link to Barbi twins when I was thinking of Bambi—ooops

    Reply

    • NAME
      How about SHY—— had a Dalmatian back in the 60’s I named. she was shy as a puppy but never after. She kept my kids away from a 3 FT Rattlesnake in our yard till the Engine crew got there and got rid of it. She raised holy hell until then. She played with those kids every day and was their protector. She even rode with me in my Patrol truck made a great hit in the camp grounds.

      Reply

  38. Thank you Cliff and Shirley…Happy 59th Anniversary…they lost their home and there is sooo many people I continue on and this lovely couple are one of my top reasons…they were in Laughlin when their home burned down. How do I get raw footage from a news station…same as FOIA’s?

    I called Craig Knapp with them present on speaker phone and we have had mix accounts so we went to the source and some say they had to pay $280 for appeals and 1% but this couple confirmed Knapp sent material out asap Friday and they got it Saturday and they do not owe any funds for the appeals process so I have no answers to why some say what they do but this couple an I confirmed right to the source—

    Reply

    • Reply to Joy A. Collura post on June 28, 2015 at 5:39 pm

      >> Joy A. Collura asked…
      >>
      >> How do I get raw footage from a news station…same as FOIA’s?

      Private companies and organizations are not subject to “Freedom of Information” requests from the public…. but if you simply ask them for specific pieces of footage that might be in their archives they will usually try to help you out.

      That’s been my experience, anyway.

      They DO have a right to CHARGE for the material, though, especially if there is any kind of time-consuming effort involved on their part to make copies and whatnot.

      >> Joy Collura also said…
      >>
      >> I called Craig Knapp with them present on speaker phone and we have
      >> had mix accounts so we went to the source and some say they had
      .> to pay $280 for appeals and 1% but this couple confirmed Knapp sent
      >> material out asap Friday and they got it Saturday and they do not
      >> owe any funds for the appeals process

      Thank you, Joy. Yes. The ‘rumor’ has been that ALL of the 160+ plaintiffs in the property damage suits were supposed to come up with $280 in order for the appeals to go forward. Nice to hear that is most likely NOT the case.

      Reply

  39. wow. one person just made the comment in legion “those people have to do the memorial but I don’t”

    this is how many think in this town so you have to understand how NOT EASY it has been to piece the puzzle and I know who is who and I have tried to get the word out for the world to properly assess the fire…

    Reply

  40. at memorial rememberance today—The one who spoke the GMHS names as one rang a bell for each name—he is from CYFD—my whole energy and connect to him—HE KNOWS SOMETHING on missing elements to YHF.
    see video.
    I strongly feel that way.
    Can you on here identify him to be one from the fire that weekend?

    Reply

  41. during a song and having WIllis on stage so near and meeting his VERY lovely wife I had a hard to keep from going into a seizure while filming Blazing Honor song because all day I cannot SHAKE how come Cordes got awards and firefighter of the year—I plan to talk to the other family he supposedly saved but I already spoke to direct to one of the families and he was not the man who saved him but a slightly bearded man age 44-54 in a green forestry truck. I said hello and waved to Karen Fann and she so ignored me plain as day…okay the world will be able to view it…let me figure out how to do it because I recorded it—over one hour…I had a great time talking with Willis and his wife; I learned a lot about his process after the deaths as his wife explained their ministering part in it…fine woman. Saw Dona Kafer there too Okay let me upload for you all. I made it to the legion.

    Reply

  42. **
    ** GARY CORDES APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN TRYING TO GET OUT TO THE BOULDER
    ** SPRINGS RANCH HIMSELF IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE DEPLOYMENT.

    Reply to Marti Reed post on June 19, 2015 at 9:00 pm

    NOTE: This is a continuation of a thread from the other day that was discussing WHY, since SPGS1 Gary Cordes knew Marsh and GM were headed to the Boulder Ranch, that arrangements weren’t being made to have them “picked up” sooner than Cordes telling Esquibel to send ‘engines’ to the BSR just prior to the deployment radio traffic.

    >> Marti said…
    >>
    >> You said:
    >> “it was (perhaps) because that’s where they were supposed
    >> to GET TO WORK on something in that same vicinity.”
    >>
    >> So, if you are correct on this (and I am understanding this), that
    >> this was in Cordes’ head……..
    >> ……then what was in Gary Cordes’ head (via, possiby Eric’s head)
    >> was that GM would be able to, relatively quickly, hoof it from the
    >> Boulder Springs Ranch, via that Driveway that led out from there
    >> to wherever “they” were imagining that dozer line that would be
    >> heading southwest from that place you have located earlier, down
    >> that draw would have met them.

    Yes… and with regards to Gary Cordes (possibly) having it “in his head” that part of the plan WAS to have Granite Mountain ( as you say ) “hoof it down the Boulder Springs Ranch driveway”…

    …I have just found more evidence that *could* indicate that was exactly what he was thinking they would do… and that after Tyson Esquibel FAILED to send anyone out there to the Boulder Springs Ranch as Cordes had instructed him to do… that Cordes, himself, actually entered Glen Ilah to see if they might have gotten ‘caught’ somewhere on that driveway.

    See below.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> Yes, I can imagine that being a slide in both (or three) of their heads.
    >> And, thus, not necessitating a “pre-positioned” plan for any vehicles
    >> to have met them there at the Boulder Springs to safely pull them
    >> out of there – until everything went south into total chaos and Gary
    >> Cordes realized that was happening, and thus, requested his Strike
    >> Force Leader (Trainee) to send an Engine to the Boulder Springs
    >> Ranch to meet them and get them out “safely.”

    Yes. And there is now new evidence which suggests that when Esquibel FAILED to do that… Cordes himself went all the way into Glen Ilah to the very place where the Boulder Springs Ranch driveway meets Ridgeway Drive to see if he, himself, could find them.

    See below.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> So THAT means that, by THAT time, Gary Cordes must have
    >> realized “The Plan” was basically toast, even though GM was
    >> heading down as a result of trying to fulfill it. and he needed to
    >> (finally) take responsibility for trying to get some kind of
    >> transportation over to them to get them (safely) from the Boulder
    >> Springs Ranch to some kind of, relatively speaking, safe (and,
    >> potentially after that, useful) place.
    >>
    >> Is that what you are “seeing” here?

    Yes, Marti. That is exactly the ‘scenario’ I was thinking of.

    That up until the moment Cordes realized EVERYTHING was ( as Paul Musser said to KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell ) “going to shit”… and that ALL plans to defend ANY part of that town were now out the window…

    Only then did he realize that any ‘plans’ that had been in place for using Granite Mountain to do anything near the BSR were also ‘out the window’.

    And since he KNEW that’s where they were heading ( or even thought they had already arrived there ) he only NOW realized the only valid ‘plan’ was to make sure they got the hell OUT of there, or were at least SAFE there at the Boulder Springs Ranch.

    So THAT is what we hear him telling Esquibel to do in the Aaron Hulburd video.

    But Esquibel never did it.

    Esquibel evacuated to the Ranch House Restaurant and never sent any engines back towards the Boulder Springs Ranch as Cordes had instructed him to do.

    ** NEW EVIDENCE?

    So here comes some NEW (?) evidence which *suggests* that the moment Gary Cordes showed up at the Ranch House Restaurant himself and realized that Esquibel had NOT sent any engines to ‘check on Granite Mountain’ out at the Boulder Springs Ranch… Gary Cordes decided to do that himself.

    Let me preface the following by saying we still do not know exactly WHEN Gary Cordes himself showed up at the Ranch House Restaurant parking lot along with everyone else.

    As far as I know… there are still NO ‘sightings’ of him in any of the Tom Story or Michelle Lee photographs taken in and around the RHR before, during and after the time of deployment.

    But what we DO know is that as the fire was coming into Glen Ilah… Gary Cordes himself was ‘back there’ in his own vehicle… trying to do “something”.

    That “something” has always been thought to be simply assisting with the evacuation of Glen Ilah… and he certainly did do some of that while he was “back there” ( and ended up winning the AWA “Fireman of the Year” for two rescues he did” ) but is that really the ONLY reason Gary Cordes went “back there” into Glen Ilah? TWICE?

    There’s some (possible) new evidence to suggest it WAS more than just that, and that he had particular “destinations” in mind BOTH times he went “back there”.

    ** CORDES TO ESQUIBEL: ARE ALL THE RESOURCES SAFE?

    Even though we don’t know the exact moment Cordes arrived at the RHR… I think it’s pretty safe to assume that when Cordes DID arrive there he must have asked Esquibel if he had done what he had told him to do with regards to ‘checking on Granite Mountain’… and Cordes then quickly found out Esquibel had done no such thing.

    Actually… Gary Cordes doesn’t mention this specific consultation with Esquibel regardinig his order to send an Engine to the BSR… but his own ADOSH testimony says that he DID have a “are all the resources safe” conversation with Tyson Esquibel at the RHR.

    Gary Cordes told ADOSH he definitely asked Tyson Esquibel if “everyone was accounted for” as soon as he arrived at the RHR.

    From Gary Cordes’ one-and-only ADOSH interview on September 11, 2013

    Q2 = Dave Larsen, WFA / ADOSH investigator ( Rest in Peace )
    A = SPGS1 Gary Cordes
    ——————————————————————————————–
    1569 A:… I was helpin ev- evacuate which looks like that Norton
    1570 way, I was trying to get some evacuation done in there because it was coming
    1571 in pretty aggressive on that end of town.
    1572
    1573 Q2: And so you were assi – you tied in with your assigned resources…
    1574
    1575 A: Right. And then after…
    1576
    1577 Q2: …uh, I…
    1578
    1579 A: …after I did that I went down to the Ranch Restaurant like which is just up by
    1580 Glenn Ilah there, and tied in with um, everybody. At that point I was making
    1581 sure everybody, all the resources were in the safety zone and uh, because we
    1582 had already made the determination that we were not gonna actively fight fire
    1583 within the community ‘til it had pulsed through because of the, the high risk.
    1584 Um, so I tied in with the crew and, and made sure everybody was accounted
    1585 for there. With the uh, task force leader.
    ———————————————————————————————–

    The ‘task force leader’ that Cordes says he ‘tied in’ with at the RHR once he got down there and was then doing that ‘confirmation’ with was, of course, Tyson Esquibel.

    It must have been at that moment when Cordes realized Esquibel had NOT done what he told him to do and Esquibel had NOT sent any ‘Engines’ out to the Boulder Springs Ranch yet.

    Matter of fact… if Cordes’ focus at that point really was just simply doing a ‘head count’ at the RHR and ( as he said himself ) ‘making sure all the resources were in the RHR safety zone’… then that is most likely the same moment he learned ALL of the following things…

    1. DIVSA and Granite Mountain were NOT there at the RHR.
    2. TFLD(t) Esquibel had NOT sent any engines to the BSR to ‘get them out safely’.
    3. No one seemed to know where the dozer and operator Paul Morin were, either, but his last know location was out there at the ‘staging area’ at the end of Manzanita Drive.

    The very NEXT thing Cordes said he did after this ‘head count’ with Esquibel at the RHR was enter the Glen Ilah subdivision itself….

    —————————————————-
    1600 Okay, and then uh, here’s one, entered the subdivision of Glenn Ilah
    1601 and what is that, removing four stranded elderly on uh??…
    1603
    1604 A: Several trips in and out.
    1605
    1606 Q2: …several trip, trips in and out, turned them over to an ambulance for tran- uh,
    1607 transmit
    —————————————————–

    The ‘several trips’ that Cordes is referring to appear to have been just TWO separate trips, each resulting in him putting two people in his truck in and driving them back to the RHR…

    …but BOTH of those rescues appear to have simply ‘interrupted’ him from reaching certain ‘destinations’ based on where those ‘interruptions’ ACTUALLY took place.

    Continued next message…

    Reply

    • ** DID CORDES HAVE SPECIFIC DESTINATIONS ON BOTH TRIPS INTO GLEN ILAH?

      It has always been assumed that the only reason Gary Cordes ended up ‘back there’ in the Glen Ilah subdivision as the fire was coming into Glen Ilah is because he was trying to ‘rescue’ citizens.

      I’m not sure now that was the PRIMARY reason he went ‘back there’ at all, on BOTH of his trips, and it is based on new evidence of exactly WHERE he really ended up ‘back there’ BOTH times.

      Let me explain…

      In March of 2014, Gary Cordes received the “Firefighter of the Year” award at the Arizona Wildfire Academy’s annual awards ceremony.

      It was for the ‘citizen rescues’ he had performed in Glen Ilah on June 30, 2013.

      It was not until this award was presented to him that we finally learned most of the DETAILS of these ‘citizen rescues’.

      A lot of those details came out in THIS article about him winning the award…

      AZCENTRAL
      Mystery man rescued residents during Yarnell Hill Fire.
      Published: 10:44 a.m. MST March 31, 2014
      http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/2014/03/31/yarnell-hill-fire-mystery-man-rescued-residents/7101035/?from=global&sessionKey=&autologin=

      Cordes performed TWO ‘citizen rescues’ as the fire was coming into Glen Ilah.

      ** THE FIRST RESCUE – ON NORTH MANZANITA

      The FIRST rescue took place at a spot on Manzanita Drive as Cordes was heading NORTH on Manzanita and (presumably?) towards that spot where the pavement of both Manzanita and Lakewood ends. In other words… Cordes might have learned at the RHR that no one knew if Paul Morin and the dozer had actually made it ‘out of there’… and Cordes *could* have been trying to succeed where even Cory Ball had failed and *could* have been trying to reach that spot at the end of Manzanita where the dozer LOBOY was staged and operator Paul Morin’s last known location.

      But if that WAS his “destination” for this FIRST trip… he never made it there.

      Cordes was ‘interrupted’ and encountered an elderly couple walking in the middle of Manzanita holding hands and dressed in pajamas. He put them into his vehicle, and drove them straight back east on Manzanita ( then via Lakewood ) to the Ranch House Restuarant.

      A friend of the couple believes this was Bob and Ruth Hart because they told him the same story.

      This is all detailed in the MSM article linked to above.

      It is even possible that after this first failed attempt to reach the end of Manzanita to try and find Paul Morin and the dozer… Cordes might have then told either OPS2 Paul Musser or the now designated “Granite Mountain Incident within an Incident Commander” Todd Abel that he was unable to confirm if Paul Morin and the dozer were either safe or had evacuated… so Morin should be officially considered “missing” along with Granite Mountain.

      Cordes then turned right around and headed back into Glen Ilah… but this time with (apparently) a different ‘destination’ in mind.

      ** THE SECOND RESCUE – NEAR THE BOULDER SPRINGS RANCH DRIVEWAY

      The SECOND trip took him all the way to west Glen Ilah, and then he was traveling north on Ridgeway Drive towards the start of the Boulder Springs Ranch driveway.

      That’s when he literally almost ‘ran into’ Bryan Smith where Deertrack Drive intersects with Ridgeway Drive, just short of the Boulder Springs Ranch driveway, and this second trip then resulted in him evacuating Bryan Smith and his 85 year old cousin.

      I’m not going to retell Bryan Smith’s entire story. It’s all detailed in the article above about Cordes winning his “Firefighter of the Year” award…. but I will give some detail which relates to this posting and WHY Bryan Smith was where he was when he (apparently) stopped Gary Cordes from making it all the way to the start of the Boulder Springs Ranch driveway.

      The reason Bryan Smith was standing in the middle of the intersection of Ridgeway Drive and Deertrack Drive is because he didn’t have a car, and he received absolutely NO EVACUATION NOTICE ( not even from any ‘Jeep Squad’ ), and he was, at the last minute, trying to get himself and his 85 year old cousin out on foot from his home on West Deetrack Drive.

      Bryan Smith’s home actually survived the fire and its location is no secret since that’s where he conducted his public video interview(s). The center of Bryan Smith’s house itself is here on the east end of Deertrack Drive…

      34.219210, -112.763609

      That short section of Deertrack Drive that is EAST of Ridgeway Drive is a dead end… so in order to have any chance of escaping on foot they ( Bryan and his 85 year old cousin ) first had to start walking WEST and back towards the intersection of Deetrack Drive and Ridgeway Drive.

      That intersection of Deertrack Drive and Ridgeway Drive is where the only road access out to the Boulder Springs Ranch is.

      The only way out to the Boulder Springs Ranch is to pass through that intersection of Deertack Drive and Ridgeway Drive, heading NORTH on Ridgeway Drive, and then where the pavement of Ridgeway Drive ends at this point…

      34.219431, -112.76464

      …Ridgeway Drive actually BECOMES the start of the dirt road that leads out to the Boulder Springs Ranch.

      So according to Bryan Smith’s story that he was freely telling the media in filmed interviews at his house… he and his cousin only walked a short way WEST on Deetrack Drive towards that intersection when his cousin collapsed and said she could go no further.

      Bryan says he got her to the center of the road so she would not be burned by the trees and bushes that were catching fire now on either side of Deertrack Drive, and he continued on through the heavy smoke towards that intersection.

      The center of that intersection of Ridgeway Drive and Deertrack Drive is exactly here…

      34.219068, -112.764813

      When Bryan Smith reached that intersection…he ran into ( almost literally ) Gary Cordes in his vehicle with its lights on ( because it now smoky and dark ) heading north on Ridgeway towards that start of the Boulder Springs Ranch driveway.

      So either this was one HUGE COINCIDENCE… or what actually happened was that Gary Cordes was purposely back there and headed out to the Boulder Springs Ranch when he almost ran right into Bryan Smith standing in the middle of that intersection of Ridgeway Drive and Deertrack Drive.

      Gary Cordes then, apparently, abandoned any other plans he might have had ( like going out to the Boulder Springs Ranch ) and he put Bryan Smith in his vehicle.

      The two of them then ‘creeped’ EAST on Deertrack Drive to try and find Bryan’s cousin who he had left in the center of the road. They had to ‘creep’ forward because the smoke was so bad and Bryan was warning Cordes to go slow so they would not accidentally run over her.

      They found her there in the middle of the road, collected her into Cordes’ truck, and then Cordes hightailed it back west to the intersection of Ridgeway and Deertrack, then south a little on Ridgeway, then east on Westward Drive which then turns INTO Lakewood drive which took them all back to Highway 89 and the Ranch House Restaurant staging area where Bryan Smith and his 85 year old cousin received medical attention.

      According to his testimony… this was the LAST trip that Cordes made back into Glen Ilah.

      Even if he had been trying to get out to the Boulder Springs Ranch when he ran into Bryan Smith at that intersection of Deetrack Drive and Ridgeway Drive… he did not repeat the effort at that point.

      Bottom line: I really don’t think Cordes running into Bryan Smith exactly where he did was just sheer coincidence. There were a lot of places and a lot of other intersections where Gary Cordes could have been in Glen Ilah at that point… but there he was at the one just a few hundred feet away from the start of the driveway for the Boulder Springs Ranch when he almost literally ‘ran into” Bryan Smith standing in the middle of that intersection.

      I believe Cordes WAS trying to either get out to the Boulder Springs Ranch himself at that point in time… or at least see if it was still possible for anyone to get out there.

      I believe that if Cordes had NOT run into Bryan Smith at that intersection of Ridgeway Drive and Deertack Drive… he would have probably continued north on Ridgeway for that few extra hundred feet and *might* have then even attempted to go out to the Boulder Springs Ranch itself via that long dirt driveway.

      After this second “Bryan Smith and Cousin” rescue… Cordes’ didn’t go back into Glen Ilah. He stayed there at the Ranch House Restaurant along with everyone else.

      ** SUMMARY

      The question really is… was it an absolute COINCIDENCE where Cordes WAS when he ended up effecting those two ‘rescues’ that afternoon… or could they (perhaps) be an indication there was a ‘purpose’ to them both and a ‘destination’ that he had in mind before ( both times ) he was ‘interrupted’ by almost literally ‘running into’ residents that he would then need to evacuate.

      I’m going to say that the evidence indicates these two locations were NOT just a ‘coincidence’.

      On his FIRST trip into Glen Ilah… he very well COULD have been heading north on Manazanita because his destination was the ‘staging area’ for the dozer and the last known whereabouts of operator Paul Morin. He may have even thought some or all of Granite Mountain were there by then.

      On his SECOND trip into Glen Ilah… he very well COULD have been just a few hundred feet away from the Boulder Springs Ranch driveway when he encountered Bryan Smith because he was actually trying to get out to the Boulder Springs Ranch… or at least make sure Granite Mountain hadn’t gotten ‘caught’ somewhere on that long driveway itself.

      And Cordes might have been doing this because Tyson Esquibel did NOT do what he had asked him to do earlier… so now he was trying to do it himself.

      That’s how SURE Cordes might have been that Granite Mountain had either already made it to the Boulder Springs Ranch… or had actually been farther along than that ( as part of “the plan”? ) and either somewhere on the BSR driveway or even somewhere near the dozer staging area where Paul Morin and the dozer were last seen.

      Cordes was certainly concerned about the citizens of Glen Ilah… but he was VERY LIKELY doing everything he could at that moment to also find both Granite Mountain AND Paul Morin, the dozer operator… especially if they had all been part of some last-ditch-effort “plan” that had now gone horribly wrong.

      Cordes himself told ADOSH investigators how personally he felt about the chance there were fatalities “back there” in Glen Ilah… both Firefighters and Citizens…

      From Gary Cordes’ ADOSH interview…

      “We assumed we had fatalities… We thought we had a, a fair amount of fatalities in there which obviously um, I felt was my responsibility”.

      Reply

      • WTKTT thank you SO MUCH for this..

        It’s really really really late, and I still need to spend a lot more time going over this, and that probably won’t happen until tomorrow.

        Trying to synchronize several timelines together inside of my head right now.

        I’m wondering how this syncs to Brian and Trew going in there, also.

        Also wondering how this connects to “everybody knowing,” by that time, that the Granite Mountain Hotshots had already deployed.

        Of course, at that time, he hadn’t actually heard those radio transmissions, he had just heard about them, and his response to having been told about that was “Bullshit!”

        I’m having a hard time imagining, all things considered, that by the time of that second trip into Glen Ilah he could have possibly thought that the Granite Mountain Hotshots would have been walking out in their full physicality via the Boulder Springs Ranch road.

        By then it was way past the time everybody knew the Granite Mountain Hotshots had deployed.

        Or maybe he was still thinking “Bullshit”?

        I really agree that he was probably heading up to the Boulder Springs Ranch on that second trip.

        But I’m thinking it was probably more with the idea of “Where TF are they????” than “I need to meet them coming out.”

        I can’t realistically imagine that by then, all things considered, his “Bullshit!” mindset was still operative.

        But maybe, on the other hand, it possibly still was?

        Hope (and delusion) springs eternal.

        And sometimes that’s a good thing. And sometimes it’s not.

        Reply

        • And sitting here thinking about this further…….

          Given the fact that he didn’t actually HEAR those radio transmissions that mostly everybody else did……….

          ……………..and thus might not have totally believed them….

          And given the “fog of war” and the whole thing about how humans don’t process exponentially escalating factors (ala the fatal Cramer Fire) all that well…………….

          It could have been possible that when he drove into Glen Ilah that second time, it WAS in hope that he would meet the Granite Mountain Hotshots coming out via that route.

          After what happened yesterday, which was a supremely historical day, my heart aches for Gary Cordes and Paul Musser and Roy Hall and everybody who set up the stage for this tragedy that happened almost two years ago. It really does.

          But that doesn’t even remotely lessen my solid opinion that the Truth of this catastrophe needs to come to light.

          So it doesn’t EVER happen again.

          Reply

          • >> Marti said…
            >>
            >> It could have been possible that when he drove into Glen
            >> Ilah that second time, it WAS in hope that he would meet
            >> the Granite Mountain Hotshots coming out via that route.

            I’m not sure he was even ‘processing’ all the ‘realities’ at that point.

            He had NOT heard that same radio traffic we have now ALL heard.
            His BK radio had crapped out… and he told ADOSH he has simply turned it off and thrown it on the seat of his truck.

            He was then only relying on the Motorola mounted in his truck and the one other Motorola handheld he had. Neither one had the A2G programmed at all so that’s why he didn’t hear ANY of the radio traffic recorded by Aaron Hulburd.

            So he was ONLY relying on what he had been told by Captain Reyes of Engine 59. “They got cut off and they deployed”.

            So he really COULD have been thinking they actually got “cut off” while they were on the driveway of the Boulder Springs Ranch itself.

            He really COULD have been thinking that they were lying right there on that driveway, somewhere, and in need of medical attention, and the sooner he could find them the better.

            It was just pure instinct.

            WHERE ARE THEY???

            Reply

      • Joy contacted Bryan Smith this morning with a long talk. Cordes was not the man who picked him up but someone in a green truck did.

        Reply

        • Copy that. Thank you, Sonny. See my reply to Joy’s post just directly below this one. If it wasn’t Bryan Smith that Cordes rescued, then according to Cordes’ testimony to ADOSH he performed an almost IDENTICAL rescue, and it did seem to be on Ridgeway Drive which is the road that becomes the driveway out to the Boulder Springs Ranch right after it crosses Deertrack Drive.

          Reply

      • at 6:40am I said I would contact Bryan to confirm above

        at 8:31am I contacted some by email that I called Brian before he went Pastor Well’s sermon at the Assembly of God

        I tried to post via cell on here IM—failed.
        so emailed.

        All I state is public information.
        Bryan had called Saturday the 29th 911 concerned about the fire as well as so many homeowners and were told it was under control and assured them all was A-Okay.

        Sunday the hospice called Bryan 3pm because Pearl Moore had lung cancer and to let them know if they decided to need assistance to just call them yet the electric went out which is tied to the landline so no phone.
        No electric on a hot day means inside home is HOT
        so when Bryan went outside and saw neighboring tall pine on fire up top and bushes burning and heavy thick smoke with no one in sight that he felt with no car and a 85 y,o, with lung cancer and he is not too hot health wise and no car better start heading out. As he walked out with Pearl he felt he was the last one in there. He never got a call or stop by from anyone to evacuate and deer track was already on fire when he left. Bryan was shocked HOW close the fire was because it was at a distance than all of a sudden bam his street is ON FIRE so we have always wanted Helms to Shrine area to be further investigated.
        Brian was not picked up near Deer Track or his home. A captain with slight bearded ages 44-54 saved his life not who was in article—Cordes—the man picked him up in a green Forestry truc.k. near Brent Yadon’s NOT near his home nor near Helm’s . Pearl was picked up by George DeLange’s home and they were delivered to the ranch house restaurant where ambulance was and Bryan was persistent and insisting to be brought by ambulance to Prescott. Bryan heard the delivery message they would need 19 ambulances andBryan had no idea why until laterbut his concern was getting him and Pearl to the hospital …so why would the media tie Bryan into the SAVING LIVES with Cordes when he did not save his life or pick him up…????

        Reply

          • Thank you, Joy.

            So… to be clear… Bryan Smith has now seen a picture of Gary Cordes and he is saying that is NOT the man who rescued him and Pearl on June 30, 2013?

            If that is the case… then it’s quite hard to fathom how AZCENTRAL could have run the article they did… complete with a VIDEO interview with Bryan Smith himself… and THEY are the ones who then published the story that Mr. Smith is definitely the person Cordes says he rescued in his ADOSH testimony…

            …but they never even bothered to do what you just did and simply SHOW Bryan Smith a photo of Gary Cordes?

            Wow.

            Reply

        • Reply to Joy A. Collura post on June 28, 2015 at 4:39 pm

          >> Joy A. Collura wrote…
          >>
          >> at 6:40am I said I would contact Bryan to confirm above
          >> at 8:31am I contacted some by email that I called Brian
          >> before he went Pastor Well’s sermon at the Assembly of God
          >>
          >> Brian was not picked up near Deer Track or his home.
          >> A captain with slight bearded ages 44-54 saved his life
          >> not who was in article—Cordes
          >>
          >> the man picked him up in a green Forestry truck. near
          >> Brent Yadon’s NOT near his home nor near Helm’s .
          >> Pearl was picked up by George DeLange’s home and they
          >> were delivered to the ranch house restaurant where
          >> ambulance was.

          Thank you, Joy. Please extend thanks to Bryan Smith as well.
          Sorry to hear that Pear has died since the Yarnell Fire happened.

          The article that was originally matching Cary Cordes’ own testimony ( which won him his “Firefighter of the Year” award ) to real people and real events is here…

          AZCENTRAL
          Mystery man rescued residents during Yarnell Hill Fire.
          Published: 10:44 a.m. MST March 31, 2014
          http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/2014/03/31/yarnell-hill-fire-mystery-man-rescued-residents/7101035/?from=global&sessionKey=&autologin=

          The article contains that in-person video interview with Bryan Smith himself, whose account of his rescue ( at that time ) matches Gary Cordes’ own testimony almost exactly… even though Bryan was never sure WHO it was that had rescued him and Pearl.

          At the time the “Firefighter of the Year” award was being given to Cordes and the article was written… Gary Cordes himself refused to be interviewed by the reporter(s).covering the AWARD ceremony.

          The article itself says…
          ——————————————————–
          This month, the Arizona Wildfire and Incident Management Academy honored Cordes with the 2013 Wildland Firefighter of the Year Award for rescuing residents.

          He declined interview requests from The Arizona Republic, citing ongoing legal issues surrounding the fire.
          ———————————————————

          So since the man receiving the award was refusing to be interviewed himself… the AZREPUBLIC put a blurb at the bottom of the article detailing how it was they were matching Gary Cordes’ ADOSH testimony with real people and events… ( Like Bryan and Pearl )…

          How the story was done
          ——————————————-
          Senior reporter Anne Ryman based this on her interviews with residents and an interview that Gary Cordes gave to investigators with the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health.

          The ADOSH interview transcripts and audio recordings were obtained through a public-records request. Radio-dispatch logs from the community of Congress, the Arizona Dispatch Center, the Arizona Department of Public Safety and the private Lifeline Ambulance service were also used to establish time frames, as well as Cordes’ activity log and the interagency Serious Accident Investigation report.
          ——————————————–

          And here is that ADOSH testimony from Cordes that the article ( and his “Firefighter of the Year” award ) was based on…

          From SPGS1 Gary Cordes’ ADOSH interview on September 11, 2013

          ** THE FIRST RESCUE ( ON MANZANITA )…

          According the article that accompanied Cordes receiving his “Firefighter of the Year Award, the ‘two elderly people’ being referred to by Cordes in his ADOSH testimony were Bob and Ruth Hart.

          Gary Cordes’ own testimony to ADOSH…
          —————————————————————————-
          I drove up Manzanita Trail uh, structures on both sides of the road were on fire and I saw an elderly couple walking down the road and there was almost zero visibility in there and, and uh, with the smoke laying in there 40 plus mile an hour winds and two elderly people holding hands walking out in their pajamas, and um, so I pulled up, they asked me to uh, if they could please get a ride and I told them to get in the vehicle very abruptly and uh, assisted the elderly woman into the vehicle and the elderly gentleman got in and, and I took them back out to the Ranch Restaurant um, dropped them off with the crews…
          —————————————————————————-

          ** THE SECOND RESCUE ( ON RIDGEWAY )

          According the article that accompanied Cordes receiving his “Firefighter of the Year Award, the man who “flagged him down’ being referred to by Cordes in his ADOSH testimony was Bryan Smith, and the woman Smith had tried to carry out but ended up leaving her in the middle of he road was Smith’s 85 year old cousin.

          Gary Cordes’ own testimony to ADOSH…
          —————————————————————————–
          I re-entered the subdivision, went down Ridge Way, Came across a gentleman waving me down in the smoke, uh, told him to get into the vehicle, he said he could not leave the area. By this time I’m getting a little annoyed because of the, the the responses of why they can’t leave. He informed me he had a, he had a uh, handicapped uh, disable neighbor, elderly woman who was – he was trying to carry her out and he couldn’t, uh, he was unable to carry her any farther. It was obviously fairly emotional, during all of this. Um, at this time I asked him where she was, he pointed uh, on a road that was fairly unattainable, all of the structures on the north side were on fire. So I made an attempt to go down that road and uh, he advised me to be careful so I wouldn’t run her over. She was in the road, and she was. I picked her up, got her into the vehicle and, and uh, uh, unfortunately he op- he opened the other side of my vehicle that was full of burning embers, and I probably yelled something unkind to him, but got the vehicle shut up and, and uh, got out of there. So uh, we thought she was burned, he had some blisters to his face, um, got, got her over, put her in an ambulance at the uh, back at the Ranch Restaurant. That was the last uh, I didn’t go any farther back in after that.
          —————————————————————————–

          So if the account being given above for this ‘second’ rescue by Gary Cordes himself is NOT referring to Bryan Smith and his 85 year old cousin… then Cordes’ story is of another… almost IDENTICAL rescue… including the part where they had to go carefully down the road in order to not run over her where she had been left in the road.

          Even if Cordes is describing some other ( almost identical ) rescue… Cordes still says he went down “Ridgeway” the second time he entered Glen Ilah, which is still the road out to the Boulder Springs Ranch.

          If Cordes’ was NOT the one who rescued Bryan and Pearl… do you know, or have you heard, of any OTHER ( almost identical ) rescue story somewhere in the Ridgeway Drive area, where Cordes told ADOSH the rescue HE performed took place?

          Reply

          • Apologies. Typo in first paragraph up above.

            Bryan Smith’s 85 year old cousin’s name was ‘Pearl’.

            First paragraph should have said…

            Thank you, Joy. Please extend thanks to Bryan Smith as well.
            Sorry to hear that Pearl has died since the Yarnell Fire happened.

            Reply

    • you have to love the posse jeep pics and the helicopters and such…and how about that fire right at Shrine to Sesame area. I want to thank all firefighters and homeowners that have shared their photos without a price tag and for free to properly assess this fire.

      I bow down to all that give their time and accounts to piece this fire

      Reply

  44. Well, I have two things to say regarding many of the recent posts. The first may only be of interest only to me because of my background of growing up in Prescott and because I am a born again Progressive, just like some people are born again Christians. And just like born again Christians I have a tendency to let my politics creep into some of my blogging and I have noticed I am the only one who does this, obviously the rest of you have more sense and self control than I do.

    Although I carry a burden that most of you probably don’t, an original sin that I am trying to atone for before I meet my maker. And now that I am an old (a young old man as Bob tells me) man that prospect looms closer each and every day. You see….it’s like this, when I was young and very stupid, I sent $20.00 to help Ronald Reagan get elected the first time he ran for President. And I am pretty sure that if there is a just God, he is going to send everybody who helped that bastard Reagan get elected President straight to hell because he was the one who started the war on the middle class that has all but destroyed it today. So…I have work to do before that glorious day comes…Hallelujah Jesus! I watched our America born rightfully elected President and Commander-In-Chief, President Barack Hussein Obama. give the eulogy for Reverend Clementa Pinckney yesterday and it was his greatest speech ever…Hallelujah Amen Sweet Baby Jesus! So…if you missed it you should look it up on YouTube and watch it…just sayin’.

    And once again, as I am so fond of saying, even though I have almost no tangible possessions (we downsized big time to be gypsies), I do have a very fair and equitable pension check that comes on the first of every month thanks to you, the good American people. So it is the rest of YOU PEOPLE (Tropic Thunder) I worry about, many of you are screwed and many more of you are going to be screwed in the future, so I fight for you. Your welcome.

    1. When I was growing up in Prescott, the Fann Ranch was the biggest thing around the area. Think John Chisum, Charles Goodnight and the King Ranches in Texas and New Mexico (Bruce King was governor of New Mexico when we first moved there.) except scale it down to Yavapai County size. They had a huge mansion (by Prescott standards back in the day) sitting on a big hill overlooking their ranch, which the town of Prescott Valley occupies today and continued out across that huge valley that sits between the mountains around Prescott and Mingus Mountain to the east.

    So, I don’t know it for a fact, but I am guessing that is where Representative Fann is coming from, which in my progressive rebel frame of mind is not a good thing. And if any of you have heard (hee, hee) of Arizona’s SB 1070 German Gestapo Show Me Your Papers Law, well THAT guy is Senator Steve Pierce another Prescott area mini me version of Chisum, Goodnight, and King who got his money the old fashioned way, he inherited it. Now tie all of that in with Rex Maughan and his mega ranch centered around Yarnell…do you see what we have here? Well…frankly I don’t either, but Yavapai and Arizona politics are up to no good, of that we can be sure (Men In Black).

    2. Now, this one is not such a long trip down a rabbit hole but it may still be a be a stretch…I don’t know? Everybody (meaning especially you Marti) has really been on the Blue Ridge Hotshots case because most of them spent most of that tragic day laying around lickin’ their nuts instead of fightin’ fire. What if THEY don’t want us to find out that the reason Blue Ridge didn’t move to engage the fire by going to the backside of Yarnell to back fire the hasty dozer line was because they did opt for the Turn Down Protocol and that’s why THEY went to the GMIHC to ask them to attempt their insane bushwhack down the Canon del Muerto to the Valle de la Muerte?

    Nobody would want the masses to know that…right? And even though Blue Ridge did the right and sane thing, that is not something they would even want to talk about, which would make the gag order by Uncle Sam easy to enforce because those boys don’t want to talk to the media or even be photographed by the media in the first place. So…

    Reply

    • Well… as far as evidence goes… there IS some testimony from Musser that SPGS1 Gary Cordes himself told him Blue Ridge was simply ‘not available’ ( to do something Musser wanted? ) at the same time Musser himself had just been told by Marsh that GM was “committed to the ridge” and also not available for whatever it was Musser was trying to round up a Type 1 Hotshot crew for circa 4:42 PM.

      There is no evidence of Blue Ridge ever being ‘asked’ to do anything other than what their final assignment was before they self-evacuated. That assignment was to ‘improve’ that dozer push on the Cutover Trail that dozer operator Paul Morin had completed.

      Here is that “availability check’ moment again.. in Musser’s own words.

      NOTE: This moment was not mentioned at ALL in the Arizona Forestry’s SAIT Investigation Notes. This “availability check” moment only came out months later when Paul Musser was being interviewed by ADOSH.

      ALSO NOTE: The way Musser tells this, with his ‘at that point’ reference and his PAST TENSE referenced that he “called” Granite… the way to read his testimony here is that he recalls having made his “availability check” with Marsh BEFORE he met with Cordes on the side of the road. Only when he was finally face-to-face with Cordes did the then do what Marsh apparently told him to do on the radio and Musser then asked Cordes about Blue Ridge’s “availability”.

      From Paul Musser’s one-and-only ADOSH interview on August 16, 2013…

      Q2 = Barry Hicks, ADOSH investigator
      A = OPS2 Paul Musser
      —————————————————————————–
      1412 A: Uh, got on the 89 to a vantage point and met with Gary Cordes. Face to face
      1413 with Gary. As far as – oh at that point, I’d also called Granite on their radio.
      1414 Because Todd was still tied up with Model Creek. I called Granite on the
      1415 radio and asked if them and Blue Ridge were still committed on the ridge?
      1416 They said that they were committed on the ridge. But Blue Ridge was on the
      1417 bottom and may, may be available. I talked with Gary, he said no their
      1418 committed to, uh, hold – to prepping and hold the dozer line.
      1419
      1420 Q2: You’re talking about Blue Ridge?
      1421
      1422 A: Yes, Blue Ridge.
      1423
      1424 Q2: Okay.
      1425
      1426 A: And that Granite was still committed in the black…
      1427
      1428 Q2: Okay.
      ————————————————————————-

      So according to OPS2 Paul Musser… he did “check about Blue Ridge” after he got off the radio with Marsh… and it was SPGS1 Gary Cordes who then (supposedly) told Musser that Blue Ridge was still ‘busy’ working on that Cutover Trail dozer line that connected the Sesame Clearing area to the Shrine Road Youth camp area.

      The timeframe for the “availability check’ that Musser made with GM is definitely in the 4:42 to 4:44 PM timerange… just moments after Brian Frisby was informing Marsh and Steed that he was now ‘rescuing’ Brendan and did Marsh want the GM vehicles moved?

      Musser’s callout to Marsh on the TAC channel came at exactly 4:42 PM and was captured in one of the Panebaker Air Study videos.

      But only Musser’s callout of “Division Alpha, Operations, Musser” was captured.

      Marsh was actually ‘busy’ on the radio at the moment completing that conversation with Frisby about moving the GM vehicles. It is assumed that the moment Marsh finished that radio conversation with Frisby that he then got with Musser and this “availability check” conversation took place.

      The assumption here has always been that Musser was doing this “availability check” on GM as he was driving down from the Sickles Road area… and that radio conversation with Marsh was over before he then ran into Cordes on the side of Highway 89, somewhere just north of where Shrine road meets Highway 89.

      Everything you suggest above is possible… but it really does look like Brian Frisby himself was pretty much clueless’ about anyone even WANTING his crew to do anything other than try and improve that “Cutover Trail”… and then they all “self-evacuated” to the Ranch House Restaurant.

      Blue Ridge Hotshot Cory Ball is another story altogether, though.

      He DEFINITELY testifies to having been given this “scout emergency dozer line” assignment by Gary Cordes.

      In his OWN Unit Log… Blue Ridge Hotshot Cory Ball said…

      1600 ( 4:00 PM ): BRIHC disengaging to safety zone.
      BRIHC one informs Structure Group One They are pushing engines everyone
      out of subdivision. (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
      Structure group one assigns me and one other to locate possibility of dozer line
      to southwest of Yarnell.
      Acquire ATV: travel into subdivision back to Dozer line.

      Reply

      • Two important points to make about this all-important testimony from Blue Ridge Hotshot Ball about Cordes telling him to “scout dozer line to protect Glen Ilah”…

        1) There is no evidence Ball himself did any kind of TDWAO. To the contrary. According to his own testimony he basically told Cordes “Aye, aye, sir!”… and he got right on the assignment… to the point where he went to the trouble to borrow an ATV to better accomplish Cordes’ assignment.

        2) If Cory Ball’s time estimation of about 1600 ( 4:00 PM ) is correct… then this matches exactly the mysterious and ongoing “When did GM actually decide to leave the black?” timing consideration. Even the SAIR established that at 3:55 PM, the men were “at rest” in the safe black ( as per MacKenzie’s photos and videos )… but then they were “on the move” and heading out of the black by 4:05 PM.

        So that ever-mysterious moment when Steed told the men to “gaggle up” and head for the Boulder Springs Ranch MUST have happened in a 10 minute window between 3:55 PM and 4:05 PM.

        Right smack in the middle of that 10 minute window ( at 4:00 PM ) we have Cory Ball testifying that is when SPGS1 Gary Cordes suddenly had this NEW IDEA and Cordes was ordering him to go scout a NEW emergency dozer line to try and protect Glen Ilah.

        Marsh and Steed would have actually HEARD Cordes give Ball that order.
        It happened over a TAC radio channel.

        Reply

        • Forgot to mention… there’s a lot of “Cordes did this” and “Cordes knew that” and “Cordes told Cory Ball” up above… but that’s because the above is just a breakdown of some pretty specific statements in the evidence record.

          I am just as convinced as Marti is that it was Paul Musser himself who was driving Cory Ball over to the Yarnell Fire Station to GET that ATV so Ball could carry out Cordes’ “order” to scout emergency dozer line.

          That means it is “not credible” to think that OPS2 Paul Musser was not only aware of this “emergency” dozer line plan that Cordes seems to have set in motion circa 4:00 PM… but was, in fact, one of the authors of “the plan”.

          I also stated below that as far as “authorship” goes… it could have been a TRIAD and Eric Marsh himself ( despite what he told Musser in the “availability check” at 4:42 ) could have been the “originator” of the plan himself.

          And I’m not even sure Cory Ball would have known that, even if he could be re-interviewed and asked more questions about this testimony in his own Unit Log.

          All Blue Ridge Hotshot Cory Ball might have known was that Cordes was telling him to go “scout out” this emergency dozer line.

          Cory Ball, himself, might have had no idea where this “last-ditch-effort plan” might have actually originated.

          For all we know… Marsh and Musser might have exchanged cellphone numbers during that “availability” check at 4:42 PM… and subsequent communications between them were now “private” and not going over the radio.

          As far as we know… neither the SAIT nor ADOSH ever requested the cellphone records of OPS2 Paul Musser or SPGS1 Gary Cordes.

          Reply

          • Followup…

            Apologies. I think I killed the King’s English up above and didn’t really say what I meant to. I was trying to say that if Musser really is the one driving Ball over to YFD to get that ATV… then Musser MUST have known all about “the plan” that Cory Ball was “executing” on ( as per Cordes’ orders ) and was also most likely one of the “authors” of “the plan” itself.

            Reply

            • WTKTT,

              Well…reading Norb’s comment and putting it together with everything you, Marti, Bob and others have been working on does make a lot of tactical sense to me if you disregard the safety aspect of moving the GMIHC into place to back fire the dozer line.

              Hell…it could even have worked if they would have tried it earlier, we did the exact same thing and on the Clay Springs Fire on the Fishlake National Forest in 1983 and saved the little town of Oak City from a grass fire that had a huge flaming front with tremendous flame lengths.

              BUT, the miscellaneous overhead, the dozer and the Santa Fe Hotshots were all in the same place at the same time when somebody came up with the idea at the last minute and then it was rock and roll. We had just stepped off the bus from the airport and found ourselves standing in front of the flaming fire front being pushed by high winds right at us and the town.

              I would really like to know more about what efforts were made to reposition Blue Ridge for this possible assignment. And I would really like to do some interviews with a stack of Garrity waiver forms and see everybody’s cell phone records.

              Although once again, and I hate to have to keep saying it, Jesse Steed had the obligation to just say no. But this angle is a very interesting contributing factor and I do think it would be something the brotherhood would be highly motivated to cover up.

              Reply

              • >> Gary Olson said…
                >>
                >> Although once again, and I hate to have to keep
                >> saying it, Jesse Steed had the obligation to just say no.

                Yes, he did.

                Even if it came down to telling Marsh “If this is a job breaker… then on Monday you can look for me over at the Crossfit Gym. I’ll be over there making other people dance with Pukie the Clown if you’re looking for me.”…

                …then that’s what he should have said.

                I think this has been said before as we discuss the evidence that points to this possible “last-ditch-effort plan”… but we have to be careful to remember that even if it IS true… there are TWO different aspects to it…

                1) The STRATEGIC decision making.
                2) The TACTICAL decision making.

                As you just said… given the right amount of time and resources… pushing a dozer line and firing it out is a STANDARD TECHNIQUE. It’s not “crazy town” until it’s actually “crazy town” to even consider it.

                So the STRATEGY itself doesn’t kill anyone.

                But the TACTICAL EXECUTION might.

                There’s no doubt that whatever TACTICAL operation Marsh and GM even THOUGHT they were executing… they blew it. They died.

                As for whether there was some “crazy town” STRATEGY involved which led to the TACTICAL errors… that’s the mystery we’re still trying to solve.

                I believe there WAS… and the full story on that has yet to be told.

                Reply

                  • Which is exactly why, as you asked me downstream:

                    “Why do you think Musser’s involvement in this is the reason why it was all gathered together and put in an envelope and sealed and stashed away in a very big locked filing cabinet?”

                    At that point, on that fire, Musser was essentially second in command. And, given that the one first in command was clueless about what was going on, well………….

                    And as soon as SAIT interviewed the Blue Ridge Four and heard way more than an earful that didn’t fit their pre-conceived narrative that nobody did anything wrong on this fire and it was all a great mystery and an impossible-to-deal-with fire that caused the GM Hotshots to get killed, instead of a stupid and extremely dangerous last-minute hail-mary plan co-conceived of and co-implemented by that effectively-first-in-command Paul Musser………………

                    ………….to me it seems pretty obvious.

                    Reply

                    • No, I don’t think you are missing something, I just wanted to ask instead of guess at what you were thinking.

                    • Remember the SAIT was charged with not naming names. Due to law suits and there fore not pursuing a possible link to the crew being moved to implement a plan there for do not reference it in any way although there are statements that should have made a investigator highly interested in the information we have uncovered and I am sure they knew it and did not follow up on it as to why the crew moved to close to possible Law Suits.
                      That is if this scenario can be proven as fact there is a ways to go here.

  45. Norb Szczurek said on

    June 15, 2015 at 10:21 pm

    “I totally agree with Bob – bad plan and too late. However, I have said in earlier chapters that although not “text book “conditions, they wanted to get that emergency dozer line in and have a “shot crew” to fire it ( the Hail Mary pass). Or at least get some additional black to add to the width of the dozer line. What else would they need them for and what did they have to loose? They were going to get their asses kicked, for numerous reasons starting back on the failed initial attack ( wont go there again because it still pisses me off) Shot crews are known for their ability to put fire on the ground under extreme conditions. Again, I am not saying this would have been a “text book” operation but I think they may have been thinking they (Ops, take your pick of which one) had no other options. I have believed for a long time that is what the GMIHC were moving to do – still don’t believe that is a viable reason to do what they did but I believe that is why they left the safe black.

    So, at who’s request? That I don’t know, I do have my suspicions (Willis?). But the bottom line remains – the crew sup is responsible for the safety of his crew. Although Gary has identified some things that may of contributed to the human side of all of this.”

    Someone asked me what I thought about this in an email, but I had missed it so I went back and looked it up and this is not something I had every thought of, but I think this makes a lot of sense and it is now my leading theory as to why they left the black.

    It never made any sense to me for them to leave the black to help with evacuations, since they were on foot, but that was the only thing I could think of, but if you could combine hotshot back firing with a quick dozer line, the plan makes tactical sense to me.

    Now of course as Bob said, too little…too late and obviously extremely risky to go to such extremes to move the GMIHC into place and certainly in hindsight a very, very, bad idea, but at least I can understand why they would think of it and want to try it since it would have been the only thing that could possibly have saved Glen Ilah and the backside of Yarnell.

    Reply

    • Oh…and one more thing, this is now going in my Yarnell Hill Chapter as my leading theory why they left the safe black unless someone comes up with something better…thanks Norb!

      Reply

      • Just to be clear, I still view the human factors as critical in the decision making process, but I think the human factors would play into why they (Marsh) would be willing to risk so much to even attempt this plan, but I do think this plan very well may be what they were shooting for.

        Reply

        • It is very possible and puts weight on Cordes shoulders.
          Cordes could have also confided in Willis thus they could not sit in the black and moved to reengage??? Just some added thoughts.
          .

          Reply

          • Yes, that’s what I think. And can you imagine what hero’s they would have been to America if the plan would have worked? It probably would have even made it impossible for the inbred bean counters on the Prescott City Council to abolish their jobs and Willis’ and Marsh’s dream that turned into everyone’s worst nightmare.

            Reply

        • Paul Musser was also involved in this, I firmly believe.

          Ever since I painstakingly figured out (two weeks ago tomorrow) that it was most likely him who dropped Cory Ball off at the Yarnell Fire Department to acquire their ATV to ride into Glen Ilah to tie in with the dozer operator and check out the possibility of putting in the dozer line.

          I still don’t believe Willis had any (overt) involvement in it. At least we still have no evidence of that.

          And, waking up and reading this cold (actually I’m still not really “woke,” just drinking coffee to get there), I find myself thinking, “Why didn’t they just ask Blue Ridge???”

          And remembering that we kinda sorta discussed that downstream a few times. Bob said (and I’m paraphrasing, so if I mis-paraphrase please correct me) that he thought Blue Ridge was still “committed” to firing off the dozer line nearer to the Youth Camp. And that THIS plan was connected to THAT plan.

          I said I disagreed, because, given the timing, by the time Cordes and Musser were starting to implement THIS plan, Blue Ridge had already abandoned THAT plan and was starting to evacuate from the Youth Camp.

          But there still could be a connection.

          I also firmly believe that it was Musser’s involvement in this that is the reason why it was all gathered together and put in an envelope and sealed and stashed away in a very big locked filing cabinet.

          Unfortunately, for the ones who decided to do that, they missed a few crumbs. But it worked for almost two years.

          A few crumbs which we, almost two years later, starting with two dots provided by Joy, were FINALLY able to piece together (after a LOT of attempts over the past two years to do it) with a number of dots provided by Cory Ball into enough of a timeline to figure this out.

          Reply

          • Sorry for mixing my metaphors on that last paragraph. Totally inelegant of me.

            But you get the picture.

            Reply

          • Marti, yes, it seems like Norb’s theory could tie in nicely with the theory you have been working on, but I do have one question right now.

            Why do you think Musser’s involvement in this is the reason why it was all gathered together and put in an envelope and sealed and stashed away in a very big locked filing cabinet?

            Reply

      • Thanks to Norb and Gary for making that clear–why would they go down into that canyon when the odds were three bullets in a six shooter roulette? That makes sense about a dozer line in progress and they needed that shot crew to do the burn back along the dozer line as we saw on the video of drip torches along Sesame St above the Shrine where it was dirt. This we do know for certain–The dozer had hit ground at Kathy Hunter’s house because it did back into her Dad’s house on the extremity of the North end of Glen Isla. How much dozing was accomplished there is up in the air unless Morin comes forward with the answer. If Morin spills the beans then we will know who actually ordered him in there and that person would have also ordered the GMHS to descend to that expected dozer line. That person might have been plural considering that it might have been hard to convince even Marsh who declared we are in the black so why not send the Blue Ridge there? Sounds like the Blue Ridge already had the fire figured out as it was–a dangerous out of control wildfire that had a storm coming in from Prescott direction that took away any chance of predicting what the wind would do. Credit goes to Blue Ridge for saving not only Donut but also for undoubtedly keeping the whole Blue Ridge crew intact.

        The human factors of breaking or causing people to break every rule in the book for fire fighting has to be addressed– Dr. Ted Putnam will have his good input on this one for sure.

        This covers many of the things I have begun to realize about the situation at hand.

        In simple terms we saw greed, chance for more government funds, opportunity to elevate status among the fire fighting circle, ego trips, faulty thinking, disregard for safety rules, confusion and lack of leadership or leadership gone amok, lazy people to put out a fire from day 1, and a number of things that legitimate Type 1 firefighters, smoke jumpers and knowledgeable fire death investigators will reveal.

        Not it seems to be all about this memorial for 19. Who is the construction company owner that will put it in? Karen Fenn owns the company–perhaps they are going to do it at just cost. It will give them a good name, but why put it here in YARNELL when all those men are buried in PRESC””OTT. They are Prescott residents and I can bet had they been killed in Idaho then we would not see all the ballyhoo about a memorial and their memorial would be where it should be–in PRESCOTT. Several locals will be hurt by a memorial out there and are already bothered by lights, etc.. Thousands are being spent so that a few widows and I think very few will have that place cordoned off to themselves. None of this makes sense considering the fact that these men worked for the US, not just Arizona but in a sense they worked for Prescott City, their home base.

        Now we have a memorial for the 19. What about the many that died since then. That fire took its tool on more than 50 beside the 19 that died. Our Yarnell memorial says that the property where they died should have been set aside for Yarnell and opened up to the public and made into a fire fighting training area so that fire fighters could learn what not to do and how to stay alive and how to disobey orders when your life is going to be compromised for no good reason and because of fallacious thinking or some boss’s ego trip. It will teach the fire fighting profession to start clamping down on hiring of unqualified leaders in the profession as well.

        Now that Yarnell memorial or black wall of wailing will include not only the deaths of 19 fire men who dared or were caused to dare and lost or both, but 50 innocent lives that have been shortened since the fire. Joy and I are now doing a research again on the names of all 50 and if possible the reason for every death. I believe that every compromised person in the Yarnell area is connected to the fire that could have and should have been quenched that Friday it started. If you don’t believe that retardant is deadly go read how 40,000 gallons dumped into the Fall river killed 20,000 fish. I would suspect they got the same treatment we at Yarnell did. Satellite images showed the high concentrations of NH3 in the Yarnell area after the retardant drops of I am told as much as 300,000 gallons. I suspect the fish died from lack of O2 in the water that would have been absorbed by the nitrates in the water. It created a dead zone and perhaps the NH3 killed the fish’s lung tissue the same as it killed lung tissue here in the Yarnell area. Think this is far fetched–how many wildland firefighters have to retire due to smoke inhalation and that is contaminated with fire retardant chemicals to escalate the problem. Why has there been no long time study on these retardants–I rather see Yarnell burn to the ground than see that 50 lives are lost due to chemical contamination.

        I do hope after all something will come of an EPA or WHO investigation on the problem of health issues here. This of course goes against the will and hopes of a multimillion dollar industry in retardant drops and certain circles that benefit from the drops and millions put into them. Maybe those millions would be healthier and better used in building defensible space so that wildland fires can have their way in certain cases–especially manzanita areas where a burn off is really a necessary benefit to the land.

        Reply

      • Well…the internet say’s, “Norb Szczurek, Retired Division Chief, North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District” although that is a very common name in many parts of the country, hee, hee, why, I have 3 Norb Szczureks on my Christmas card list alone.

        Reply

    • would have to decline the mascot name “Smokey” due to 18 U.S. Code § 711 – “Smokey”—

      We can change the way it is spelled though-

      I do not want jail time. soft smiles.

      THE LAW: (((Whoever, except as authorized under rules and regulations issued by the Secretary of Agriculture after consultation with the Association of State Foresters and the Advertising Council, knowingly and for profit manufactures, reproduces, or uses the character “Smokey”, originated by the Forest Service, United States Department of Agriculture, in cooperation with the Association of State Foresters and the Advertising Council for use in public information concerning the prevention of forest fires, or any facsimile thereof, or the use of the name “Smokey” shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both. )))

      Reply

      • also would have to decline “Bambi” due to Disney copyright and these two (((https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbi_Twins))) only got away with it because they are twins…

        Some now will POP that has never been used that ties into this here Yarnell Hill Fire discussion board…for now keep it simple…”come here little one”

        Whatever name it becomes will become the mascot and a postcard too.

        Reply

  47. **
    ** DARRELL WILLIS WILL SPEAK PUBLICLY AT CEREMONY IN YARNELL

    Reply to Sonny post on June 23, 2015 at 12:46 pm

    >> Sonny said…
    >>
    >> The locals are cleaning up the memorial ground across the street
    >> from Yarnell Fire Department,. The nice new white hummer is
    >> cleaned and polished so Chief Ben Palm looks good there.

    The Yarnell Hill Recovery Group has now announced the official ‘plans’ for the second anniversary there in Yarnell.

    There will be TWO events. One this coming Sunday and then another one on Tuesday, June 30 itself.

    Former Prescott Wildland Division Chief Darrell Willis is one of the ‘speakers’ there in Yarnell at the first event this coming Sunday, which is actually the official ‘dedication’ of that other memorial park there inside Yarnell itself at the corner of Shrine Road and Highway 89.

    BOTH events take place at this ‘memorial park’ at Shrine Road and Hwy 89.

    Here’s the press release from the “Yarnell Hill Recovery Group”…

    Second Anniversary of Yarnell Hill Fire
    http://www.arizonahighways.com/?q=blog/recovery-group-mark-second-anniversary-yarnell-hill-fire

    From the Press Release itself…
    ——————————————————————————————-
    Yarnell will commemorate the second anniversary of the Yarnell Hill Fire with two events, both to be held at the Memorial Park Site at 22556 S. Highway 89, at the corner of Shrine Rd. and State Route 89.

    On Sunday, June 28, the ceremony will begin at 1:00 pm, and will honor the loss of the 19 members of the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew. The event will include music, and brief statements by local leaders and former Division Chief of the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew, Darrell Willis. Lew Theokas, the grandfather of Garret Zuppiger one of the fallen Hotshots, will also make brief comments. The second anniversary remembrance event includes a groundbreaking ceremony for the Memorial Park, which was donated to the Yarnell Fire District through the efforts of the Yarnell Hill Recovery Group. Several commemorative gifts to be incorporated into the park will also be presented. The event is expected to last approximately one hour.

    On Tuesday, June 30, the ceremony begins at 4:00 pm. It will focus only on the 19 firefighters and is structured so that those in attendance will participate in the county-wide moment of silence at 4:42 pm.

    The public and media are invited to the Sunday event; the Tuesday ceremony is intended primarily for local residents and those immediately impacted by the fire.
    ——————————————————————————————-

    >> Sonny also said…
    >>
    >> I hear Mr. Palm is running for mayor now

    Yes, Yarnell Fire Chief Ben Palm is running for the title of “Honoray Mayor” of Yarnell, but it’s not what you would think.

    It’s actually just part of a clever fund-raising campaign to benefit individual ’causes’ and the Yarnell Chamber of Commerce.

    People can ‘pretend’ to run for “Honorary Mayor” and try to raise money but they are actually just ‘pledged’ to a CAUSE of their choosing and whatever money they raise… 90 percent goes to their CAUSE of choice and the other 10 percent goes to the Yarnell Chamber of Commerce.

    Chief Ben Palm is “running” on behalf of the Yarnell Hill Memorial Park group and they memorial site they already have planned in Yarnell itself there at the corner of Shrine Road and HIghway 89.

    Chielf Palm has already ‘pledged’ that whatever money he raises during his ‘campaign’ will go towards the memorial to help pay for the landscaping and the flagstone needed to complete the park.

    Even if he WINS the ‘election’… he just gets a ‘badge’ saying he is the “Honorary Mayor”. There are no actual ‘duties’ associated with the ‘honor’.

    Reply

    • Joy and I will most likely be there to record Mr. Willis. He you know was a testifier against Joy when they were trying to restrict her human rights of being able to hike and to shut her up as well. What happened to free speech in this country–It is almost as the British did with the Colonists–If you are for the Crown and not freedom then you can use any petty excuse to persecute others. False accusations are accepted in the Prescott court simply by influence of those connected to the cronies.

      Now, we the people know that the Yarnell fire department is best used as an EMT service. Joy wants to add a pumper to the Hummer but I am not sure those fellows would be anxious to use it in case of a fire. Look how that system refused to put out the death fire–and I mean death because it not only includes the 19 but also we just today heard of Don Anderson’s lung related death today making it an even 50 elderly folks dead — That is 69 deaths I attribute to the fire. Yes there may have been as many as 10 that could have died of natural causes and those even could have been escalated by the fire situation. But 50 in a population of approximately a thousand since the fire?

      Yes I think Chief Ben Palm who we know to have great experience in EMT might be doing the right thing making it more oriented toward EMT. They do good work after all there–The workers frequent the Senior Center in Yarnell and are ready to check blood pressure and oxygen levels–something that might save a life after all. But for the firefighting business, especially anything local, a band of well informed citizens able bodied enough to attack a miniscule fire right off makes more sense than a bunch of firemen that can’t make up their minds whether to put out a budding disaster or not. Shit the local men would have been there in a heartbeat–maybe 20 or 30 men if they knew that they were not going to be protected by their local fire fighters.

      This reminds me of Dolan Springs– that fire department never put out a fire in the 8 years I was resident there that I knew of anyway. So I asked the local firre chief there why not? He told me they were trained to contain a fire, not put them out.

      Reply

      • REPLY TO:
        Sonny says
        June 26, 2015 at 1:24 pm

        Joy and I will most likely be there to record Mr. Willis. FOR? I GUESS WE COULD- DID NOT EVEN PHASE ME- DO YOU ALL HERE WANT TO HEAR IT OTHERWISE MAY JUST PASS—

        He you know was a testifier against JoyI DISAGREE IN A SENSE HERE. WILLIS FOUND IT TO BE A PLEASURE TO FINALLY HAVE MET US THE HIKERS FACE TO FACE AND SAID THAT 1-9-15 10:40AM AND I THINK HE WAS SHARING ON THE STAND HEARSAY FROM ANOTHER THAT SEEM TO BE ALLOWED IN THAT PRESCOTT COURT ROOM AND THERE IS NO DOUBT IN MY MIND THAT HIS WORDS USED AS TESTIMONY WAS INDEED HEARSAY FROM ANOTHER AND SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ADMISSIBLE AT ALL…THE WHOLE REFLECTING BACK AND LOOKING AT MY PRISTINE BACKGROUND AND THE WAY I WAS BEING PORTRAYED IN THAT COURT ROOM FELT LIKE A MOCK MADE UP SITUATION TO ME TO KIND OF SHAKE ME UP FOR SOME REASON NOT YET FIGURED THAT OUT BUT I FOUND THE TREATMENT ESPECIALLY MY CHARACTER A LEVEL OF ABUSE OF THIS COURT BUT WHO AM I JUST SOME HOUSEWIFE AND DESERT WALKER THAT HAD LAW CLASSES IN HIGH SCHOOL; STREET LAW WAS MY FAVORITE BUT EVEN THEN I NEVER TOOK A SERIOUS INTEREST IN IT BECAUSE IT IS ALL A DEBATE AND TWISTS AND SHADOWS FROM MY PERSEPCTIVE VERSUS PURITY—HORSE SHIT WORLD IN MY VIEW PLUS I CANNOT REMEMBER THE LAST TIME I HEARD “JUSTICE WAS SERVED”… when they were trying to restrict her human rights of being able to hike THAT WAS IN THE PAPERS I WAS SERVED THAT SUNDAY SONNY- THE HEARING RELEASED IT TO STATE LAND TO HANDLE AND THEY DID WITH A MAP AND LETTER THE VERY NEXT DAY—and to shut her up as well.SHUT ME UP FROM WHAT? I AM JUST NOT ALLOWED TO MENTION ONE TOPIC. THE JUDGE LIFTED THE PUBLIC MEETING RESTRICTION THAT WAS IN PAPERS I WAS SERVED- What happened to free speech in this countryTRUE SONNY—TRUE—BECAUSE HAD IT NOT BEEN FOR THE FREE SPEECH OF YCSO SGT ASHBY, KRISTEE LEWIS AND CHIEF BEN PALM AND ERROL EASTWOOD I WOULD OF NEVER SAID ANYTHING ONLINE ON ANY PERSON BUT IT WAS GETTING VERY OLD TO HEAR MISINFORMATION ESPECIALLY FROM PROFESSIONAL AUTHORITY ROLES SO YES I WAS FRUSTRATED AND SHARED IT HERE–It is almost as the British did with the Colonists–If you are for the Crown and not freedom then you can use any petty excuse to persecute others. False accusations are accepted in the Prescott court simply by influence of those connected to the cronies.I DISAGREE HERE. I DO THINK THERE IS A TIGHT KNIT IN THAT SMALL TOWN YET I THINK USING FALSE ACCUSATIONS IS INCORRECT BECAUSE I DO NOT KNOW IF YOU HEARD THE HEARING SONNY YET I WAS UNDER THE IMPRESSION THE PERSON DID OR DOES FEEL THAT WAY SO WHAT IS DONE IS DONE AND SIX MONTHS MORE TO GO YET IN MY HUMBLE OPINION—“UNJUST”

        Now, we the people know that the Yarnell fire department is best used as an EMT service.TRUE!

        Joy wants to add a pumper to the Hummer
        NOT TRUE- AS WILLIS SHARED TO ME END OF LAST YEAR THE BEST VEHICLE WOULD BE A 3/4-1 TON PICK-UP WITH SLIDE IN PUMP UNIT THAT IS SELF CONTAINED CARRYING 125 GALLONS OF WATER AND HAS SMALL PUMP WITH HOSE AND BASIC WILDLAND TOOLS TO CONTAIN SMALL FIRES- I WANT THE HUMMER SOLD AND POSTED IT ON BULLETING BOARDS—I HAVE HAD NEUTRAL FROM BUSINESS OWNERS TO WAY POSITIVE FROM THE REST FROM THE FLYERS AND NOT YET ANY NEGATIVES—I EMAILED FLYER TO SOME OF YOU ON HERE— but I am not sure those fellows would be anxious to use it in case of a fire.WELL IT DEPENDS WHERE AND HOW BIG THE FIRE? Look how that system refused to put out the death fire–and I mean death because it not only includes the 19 but also we just today heard of Don Anderson’s lung related death today making it an even 50 elderly folks dead THIS PART IS DISAPPOINTING PART FOR ME BECAUSE I SPENT TOO MANY HOURS GATHERING EVERY NAME AND ONE EVENT AND I NO LONGER HAVE IT BUT THE NAME COUNT WOULD RANGE BETWEEN 40-50 NAMES AND I WILL REDO IT POSSIBLY TO HAVE ACCURATE NUMBER BECAUSE SONNY WANTS TO ALWAYS TALK ABOUT THE RETARDANT SO IT WAS NOT SIMPLE OR FAST IT WAS A TIME CONSUMING PROJECT I DID AND SONNY SAID HE COULD JUST GO TO THE OBITS AND SEE BUT I KNEW AND KNOW THIS COMMUNITY SO IT TAKES ME TO DO IT BECAUSE I KNOW WHO MOVED AND THEN DIED OR WHO STAYED AND DIED…— That is 69 deaths I attribute to the fire. Yes there may have been as many as 10 that could have died of natural causes and those even could have been escalated by the fire situation. But 50 in a population of approximately a thousand since the fire?IF YOU ARE SERIOUS SONNY I CAN LET GO OF THE SOUR SPOT ON THIS TOPIC AND HELP HERE BUT I JUST DO NOT WANT A REPEAT WHERE I ENED UP DOING IT THAN ONE EVENT LOSE IT ALL—IF I CAN HAVE A COMMITMENT THERE FROM YOU THAN YES I CAN REDO THIS AREA FOR PROPER UPDATE

        Yes I think Chief Ben Palm who we know to have great experience in EMT might be doing the right thing making it more oriented toward EMT. MY BEEF IS THE HUMMER AND THAT THERE WAS BETTER CANDIDATES AND MORE QUALIFIED RIGHT HERE LOCALLY BUT THEY NABBED A PRESCOTT VALLEY EMT BEN PALM AND JUST PINNED HIM CHIEF AND IF I HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT AFTER WHAT BOB KRAMER TOLD ME I WILL MAKE SURE THE VOTES DO NOT GO TO HIM FOR HONORARY MAYOR BECAUSE I GAVE THE MAN THE OPPORTUNITY TO REMEDY IT AND SIT DOWN WITH ME YET HE DECLINED THAT INVITE—They do good work after all there–The workers frequent the Senior Center in Yarnell and are ready to check blood pressure and oxygen levels–something that might save a life after all. But for the firefighting business, especially anything local, a band of well informed citizens able bodied enough to attack a miniscule fire right off makes more sense than a bunch of firemen that can’t make up their minds whether to put out a budding disaster or not. Shit the local men would have been there in a heartbeat–maybe 20 or 30 men if they knew that they were not going to be protected by their local fire fighters. I THINK YOU CAN BE ARRESTED OR FINED IF YOU DID SONNY IN THIS MODERN WORLD BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO BE CERTIFIED TO DO THAT—ALL LIABILITY STUFF…I KNOW YOU CAN’T DO IT BUT IF YOU DID YOU WOULD BE ACCOUNTABLE BUT NOONE IS IN THIS YHF AND THAT IS WEIRD…

        This reminds me of Dolan Springs– that fire department never put out a fire in the 8 years I was resident there that I knew of anyway. So I asked the local firre chief there why not? He told me they were trained to contain a fire, not put them out.SAME IN CONGRESS BUT THERE IS ALOT OF THAT I DO UNDERSTAND- SAFETY MATTERS…

        Reply

        Reply

  48. **
    ** ARIZONA STATE PARKS CAN ONLY BID $304,000 FOR THE DEPLOYMENT SITE LAND

    Since the Governor’s announcement this afternoon… the MSM has picked up on it and the ‘new name’ for the deployment site land is being widely reported.

    MOST of these MSM articles have picked up on the fact that regardless of this ‘announcement’… the Arizona Parks department doesn’t even OWN the land yet… and they are only “hoping” that no one else shows up to outbid them.

    The Prescott Daily Courier has already published their own ‘update’ on this and it includes an interview with Arizona State Parks Executive Director Sue Black.

    As a result of this interview… Sue Black reveals a few important ‘points’.

    1. It WILL be Arizona State Parks representatives doing the actual bidding for the land on the steps of Yavapai County Courthouse at 11:00 AM this upcoming June 30, 2015. That means that somehow the $500,000 that was allocated to an entity known as the “Yarnell Hill Memorial Site Board” is already available to them and can be considered “State Parks money”.

    2. Despite the fact that $500,000 was appropriated to acquire the deployment site… Sue Black states that Arizona Parks is ONLY allowed to bid up to $304,000 and no higher. That is the established ‘fair value’ of the land and, apparently, Arizona State Parks is prohibited ( by State Law ) from spending any more than this established ‘fair market value’ no matter what.

    Sue Black goes on to say that the way the bidding scheme is set… the ‘bids’ must come in increments of $10,000 so the ‘next highest bid’ above the established ‘fair market value’ would be the sum of $314,000 dollars.

    So forget about someone needing $500,000 plus 1 dollar to acquire the land themselves.

    It will only take $314,000 to ‘outbid’ Arizona State Parks department on June 30, 2015.

    $314,000 is peanuts.

    There are a LOT of people ( and organizations ) that have that kind of money available to them.

    Here is the Prescott Daily Courier article that just appeared…

    The Prescott Daily Courier
    Yarnell Hill memorial site named ‘Granite Mountain Hotshots Memorial State Park’
    Published: 6/25/2015 6:09:00 PM
    http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=146911

    From the article…
    ———————————————————————————–
    Although Parks doesn’t actually own the land yet, Executive Director Sue Black said she was fairly confident that they would win the bid.

    “I don’t think that (outbidding Parks) would be in the best public interest” she said, but if the price is bid up, “we’ll just cross that bridge when we come to it.”

    Black added that, by state law, she can only pay up to the fair market value of the property, which is about $304,000, and because of the bidding scheme, the next one would have to be $314,000.

    “I can’t imagine anyone would bid on it,” she said.
    ———————————————————————————–

    Reply

    • Another thought on this if the State owns it could they pull the Rabbit out of the HAT — on EMINENT DOMAIN FOR ROAD ACCESS?
      Most States and the Government have that ability to build roads thru Private property which would accomplish that objective as private owners do not.

      Just a thought as to why the committee is willing to let Parks and Recreation purchase the land as a Park. Remove the RED TAPE problem———–

      Reply

      • That’s a very good point.

        Having the site become an official State Park really is the best thing for all concerned… now and into the future. If handicap access to the site quickly becomes a huge issue then the fact that it is already a State Park offers the most options for getting that figured out quickly and efficiently… even if it means playing hardball with reluctant land owners.

        It also offers the best scenario for all the fair access issues. There could certainly still be reasonable restrctions ( like no alchohol, no shirt no shoes no service basic stuff ) but you’d be hard pressed to run a State Park that only allows access to “the brotherhood” like “Widows, Inc.” was planning.

        Supposedly… ALL would be welcome to visit this State Park… and that’s how it SHOULD be.

        Example: It’s pretty much general knowledge now that the “lock down” which took place on the site was because at least one of the relatives of the deceased basically had a panic attack when it was learned that some psychics and mediums were interested in visiting the site. Even the Bible came out and there was much ado about how “against our beliefs” that would be and the great extents they were willing to go to make sure no one like that could ever possibly be allowed access to what they were calling “That sacred ground”

        I remember the one and only time I visited the Vietnam War memorial in Washington, DC. It was crowded. I was looking for someone’s name on the wall. I found it… and I paid my respects… but right next to me was a group of people focusing on another name and appearing to have some kind of session or ceremony. I couldn’t hear all that was being said because not only would it have been rude to intrude or eavesdrop… it was none of my business. They were there for their own reasons and it had nothing to do with me. The only thing I could hear clearly at one point was the person who seemed to be the leader of the group saying repeatedly… “Speak to us if you can… Speak to us if you can”.

        So was that a medium or a psychic helping some others try to ‘contact’ the departed?

        I don’t know. As I said… none of MY business.

        Did they have as much right to be there as I did and pay their respects, in their own way, to someone (singular) or someone’s (plural) who they may or may not have even known?

        You damn betcha.

        So when the ‘gavel’ falls on the steps of the Yavapai County courthouse just a few days from now and someone shouts…

        “SOLD to xxxxxx for $yyyyyy”

        …I have all my fingers and toes crossed that ‘xxxxxx’ is none other than “Arizona State Parks Department”

        Any other outcome… and things are going to get REALLY WEIRD.

        Reply

      • Thanks for all of this. I managed to flee town for a couple of days and came back in last night and read this.

        It was so dumbfounding (and DUMB) that I just sat there trying to contemplate it and finally fell asleep trying to do that.

        Sure would be nice if there were the (legally required) meeting minutes somewhere.

        Reply

  49. **
    ** JUMPING?

    I hope a press release just issued by the Arizona Governor’s office doesn’t turn from a simple act of “Jumping the gun” to a bona-fide “Jumping the SHARK” moment.

    The Arizona Governor’s Office has just announced that the OFFICIAL name of the Yarnell Hill Fire Memorial site will be…

    “Granite Mountain Hotshots Memorial State Park”

    …but the State of Arizona Parks Department doesn’t even officially OWN the land yet.

    That can’t possibly be even near true until following the upcoming auction of the land at 11:00 AM on June 30, 2013, on the steps of the Yavapai County Courthouse… and the “Yarnell Hill Memorial Board” ends up the ‘winning bidder’ for the land.

    Interestingly enough… this ‘premature’ press release on the part of Arizona Governor Doub Ducey tells us that it will ( supposedly ) be representatives of ‘Arizona Parks’ itself that will be the ones standing on the courthouse steps a few days from now and bidding for the land.

    Not sure how that works since the $500,000 allocated by the Arizona Legislature was given to an entity called “The Yarnell Hill Memorial Site Board” and NOT directly to “Arizona State Parks”… but I suppose when it’s nothing but foxes in the henhouse the eggs get passed around pretty freely, so to speak.

    All that means is that if it really is “Arizona State Parks” bidding directly on the land on June 30, 2015… and they ‘win’… then from that moment on the ACCESS to the land is in their ballpark and not sure what control the other entity has ( Yarnell Hill Memorial Site Board ).

    What’s also interesting is that despite the ‘optimism’ in this press release… they still felt the need to include the phrase “…following a successful bid”.

    PRESS RELEASE
    From the Office of the Arizona Governor Doug Ducey
    June 25, 2015

    http://azgovernor.gov/news/yarnell-hill-memorial-site-officially-named-%E2%80%9Cgranite-mountain-hotshots-memorial-state-park%E2%80%9D

    From the Governor’s Press Release…
    ———————————————————————
    Yarnell Hill Memorial Site Officially Named “Granite Mountain Hotshots Memorial State Park”

    June 25, 2015

    PHOENIX – In a historic meeting, the Arizona State Parks Board yesterday named the future site of the Yarnell Hill Memorial. By unanimous vote, the Board adopted “Granite Mountain Hotshots Memorial State Park” as the official site name.

    “No words will ever fully convey our gratitude for these 19 heroes — we owe them a debt that can never be repaid,” said Governor Ducey. “But this memorial, named in their honor, will remind us every day of their sacrifice, and of how blessed we are to have brave first responders like them out there protecting us every day. I’m proud we can honor them with this due tribute.”

    “This is a historic moment and Arizona State Parks and the Board are proud to be part of the process,” said Arizona State Parks Board Chairman R.J. Cardin. “We continue to work to make the site a special place that will honor the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots who lost their lives there.”

    In 2014, House Bill 2624 tasked the Board with purchasing the site and establishing a memorial park. Today, the Board fulfilled an important part of this mission by officially naming the future park. The Board, which is chaired by Arizona State Parks Executive Director Sue Black, is working with elected officials and family members of the 19 wildland firefighters to create a place to pay tribute to the Granite Mountain Hotshots.

    House Bill 2624 also set aside $500,000 for the purchase of the State Trust land on which this tragedy occurred. On June 30, 2015, Parks will attend a public auction and bid on this 320-acre parcel. Following a successful bid, Parks will designate the land as a memorial to the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots who sacrificed their lives fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire on June 30, 2013.
    ———————————————————————

    Reply

    • Followup…

      Notice that the Governor’s Press Release today mentions that various ‘negotiations’ and ‘meetings’ have taken place between the “Yarnell Hill Memorial Board” and “Arizona Parks”.

      The place where ALL Agendas and Minutes for ANY meetings of the PUBLIC Arizona Yarnell Hill Memorial Site Board are supposed to ( by LAW ) appear is here on a website at the Arizona State Parks Server…

      http://azstateparks.com/committees/Yarnell.html

      As required by law… all MINUTES for ALL meetings of that Board are REQUIRED BY LAW to be made PUBLIC within 72 hours of a meeting… even in a DRAFT form that won’t be officially approved until the beginning of the NEXT meeting…whenever that is.

      The MINUTES for the complete LAST TWO meetings of this Arizona PUBLIC board are still totally MISSING from this Arizona State Parks website.

      Reply

      • LMAO.

        Just in case I didn’t type “Required by Law” enough in the paragraph above…

        …did I say that the “Yarnell Hill Memorial Board” is REQUIRED BY LAW to publish the minutes from their meetings within 72 hours of any meeting?

        The last officially ‘published’ minutes for a meeting go all the way back to February 27, 2015.

        NOTHING is there for the TWO other official Board meetings that have gone down since then.( April 10, 2015 and May 29, 2015 ).

        Reply

        • Why do I continually get the feeling that for anyone living in the great state of Arizona… these pesky things everybody keeps calling LAWS are really just… well… sort of ‘guidelines’?

          Reply

          • That ain’t no shit! Laws aren’t even guidelines for many of the people who live in Arizona and those who represent them, they are just obstacles to figure out how to get around or just ignore.

            Reply

          • Guide lines? More like used to control freedoms that the TV soused public agrees to. When did this country get so restricted that you need to buy a land pass to hike across country. The new mind set is restrict freedoms in every direction and when men begin to believe there is a better way than the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, then we live in what we are made to believe is a civilized society. My Tee Pee just does not fit within the HOA Weaver Estates where people look like bees in a hive–every house looks alike and too many beers and you might wind up in the wrong bed room. I have talked to people that have done that there. But I am happy that my Tee Pee does not fit in there==do keep your cookie cutter home in that bee hive and out of the desert environment I enjoy.

            We are handing over too much to government–is it because we are lazy to do the things we need to do?

            Reply

  50. **
    ** THE FIRST VERSION OF THE LAW ALLOCATING MONEY FOR THE MEMORIAL SITE
    ** ALSO SAID THAT A SMALL GROUP OF FAMILY MEMBERS SHOULD GET “FIRST DIBS”
    ** ON BUYING THE LAND.

    Reply to Gary Olson on June 24, 2015 at 2:55 pm

    >> Gary Olson said…
    >>
    >> I am not going back right now at least, to find exactly were the
    >> information came from that “a group” of GMIHC widows want
    >> or did want at one time to buy the deployment site so they could
    >> control who was permitted to visit the deployment site, but I think
    >> it was from articles in the local newspapers.

    Yes.

    It was actually part of the Associated Press News Service’s press release about Arizona House Bill 2624 beiing passed.

    That’s the piece of legislation eventually passed the Senate, too, and was signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer. It established the Yarnell Hill Memorial Site Board itself and gave them the $500K to buy the land where the deployment happened.

    The Associated Press reported that House Representative Karen Fann ( who represents Prescott ) amended the bill at the last minute and added a provision that some of the ‘widows’ of the deceased should get “first dibs” on buying the land. Those ‘widows’ approached her and ASKED her to put that special treatment clause into the legislation.

    She did. The bill that passed the Arizona House had that in it.

    Karen Fann’s ‘widows get first shot at buying the land’ clause in the original legislation didn’t survive Arizona Senate Committee Review… and the version that the Senate passed changed it to be a “first order of business” vote-style ‘action item’ decision on the part of the newly created Arizona State Yarnell Hill Memorial Board.

    That’s the version that was signed into law.

    The newly formed Yarnell Hill Memorial Board DID take this “should the State buy the land or let the widows have it” issue as a “first order of business”, as required by the legislation itself.

    The vote went against “the widows”.

    The Board voted that the State of Arizona should NOT just “let them have it” and the State should use the $500K allocation to acquire the land itself.

    Following that vote… there was never any “statement” from “the widows” themselves ( or from House Representative Karen Fann ) about this decision and the dashing of their original plans to acquire the property themselves.

    So no one really knows if they had changed their minds by then, or not, or whether the Board’s decision actually just pissed them off and they still have every intention of showing up at the Public Auction just a few days from now to try and outbid the State of Arizona.

    SIDENOTE: It’s actually pretty ODD that Arizona State Representative Karen Fann, who was ALL FOR the ‘widows’ having “first dibs” on the land… is also the one who was helping to set the upper limit of $500K for the appropriation in the legislation itself.

    Could it be that State Representative Karen Fann, in her conversations with “the widows” prior to her amending the legislation, already KNEW what kind of “dollar power” the “widows” had?… and the upper limit of only $500K for Arizona to purchase the land was based on that prior knowledge?

    I guess we’ll find out in just a few days.

    PS: It is still NOT KNOWN who these “widows” actually are who first asked Representative Karen Fann to actually write into the LAW the clause which stated they would get “first dibs” on owning the land.

    Here’s just ONE of the MSM outlets that published the ‘Associated Press” release when HB 2624 passed in the Arizona House…

    WORLDNOW NEWS
    Article Title: Arizona House approves Yarnell Hill memorial site plan
    Posted: Mar 05, 2014 5:34 PM CST
    Updated: Mar 05, 2014 5:34 PM CST
    Posted by Jennifer Jones
    http://apmobile.worldnow.com/story/24897692/house-approves-yarnell-hill-memorial-site-plan

    From the article…
    ——————————————————————————
    PHOENIX (AP) – Associated Press Release

    The Arizona House of Representatives has passed a bill setting aside $500,000 to create a memorial site honoring the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots who died in the Yarnell Hill Fire last year.

    House Bill 2624 passed Wednesday on a 56-2 vote and now goes to the Senate.

    It was amended Monday to give the firefighters’ survivors the chance to buy the site themselves. Rep. Karen Fann of Prescott says the widows approached her about the proposal.
    ——————————————————————————

    Reply

    • WTKTT,

      Thank you for looking all of that up and explaining it so well, you really are a smart person and you are really good at explaining things, I really do wish you would write a book about this fucking disaster because that will probably be the only one worth reading. Although John Maclean really kicked ass in his other books and didn’t sugar coat what went wrong.

      It’s not as bad as I thought it was, it is really a lot worse, Karen Fann sounds exactly like somebody who I would expect to be representing Prescott, Arizona, Everybody’s Home Town. And I am going to stop writing now, before I go off on another one of my tangents.

      Thank God, who (whoops, I kept writing) so many of those who I view as being on the “other” side of this debate like to invoke, (since I personally don’t think God had anything to do with what happened to the GMIHC good or bad) that somebody in that insane asylum that normally passes for an Arizona State Legislature (Arizona is one of THOSE states the rest of the country so often points to and laughs at) still realizes that this country is a democracy (or at least a republic) and they need to put lipstick on this pig for the masses once in a while and shot that stupid and illegal (in that it no doubt violated state law in several ways) idea down.

      And frankly, if the Widows Inc. do show up with a big chunk of the money given to them by the general public and buy the deployment site to keep the general public away from it, I say good riddance. They can keep their site, and their fantasy about how and why their husbands died for as long as they care to. I don’t need to visit the site to find closure for the Yarnell Hill Fire.

      I am looking for the answers here (and of course I think I have already found most if not all of them, but I still keep picking up tidbits here and there like how overwhelmingly pervasive fundamentalist Christian beliefs were on the GMIHC, as in, With Jesus All Things Are Possible, yeah, including some really bad things and very well may have figured into their decision to do something so fucking stupid…nobody can believe it, since I say, God Helps Them Who Help Themselves) where it will digitally remain for as long as there is an internet. So there!

      I am really embracing this social media and internet thing, after spending a lifetime as one of the helpless masses without a voice since I never could afford to hire a whore of an attorney to speak for me. I think it is great and websites are really cheap and surprisingly easy to build and maintain if you have the hours to put into them, which I do.

      Reply

  51. Dear Marti,

    I know you are one of the few that want to know the truth.
    You have Joy’s and my invitation to stay at my cabin and take the hike.

    Know that my lungs and heart are not great but I will make it- slowly.
    Also, we will extend it to a few on here.

    Reply

    • Thank you so much for that, Sonny.

      Really, I have been seriously trying, for a while, to get through all my “local issues” to think about getting there. I need to get physically stronger, myself, and bring my daughter (whose dad lives in Flagstaff) on board to do the driving. Maybe when it gets a bit cooler??

      And I’ve also been trying to, in my brain, figure out how to connect that with a number of hours of conversing with Gary Olson. Which may not be possible.

      With, also a visit to my aging uncle in Phoenix, who we absolutely need to spend some time talking with.

      But, yeah, I have been for a long time, trying to conjure up this visit.

      Reply

  52. Soon when it is in my hands versus “talk”…I cannot wait to show you what I am hearing earlier today…man, if these photos come through in person…you all WILL hug me…pretty tight too.
    And “ahhhh” will be what you will say in relief….I know I feel that way.

    I am smiling huge.

    Thank you Lord…
    clap, clap, clap

    I do not want it to not happen so can’t say too much….I was going to go to the Prescott Memorial but ran into a county employee today and learned my interest should be Yarnell on the 30th so I will not be in Prescott at Jersey Lily’s…

    Reply

  53. Regarding the evacuation and the jeeps, and thanks, Joy, for the photos.

    Last weekend I was off on a quest to see if I could pin down something the had been whispering into my ear about that “waz yo status” question.

    I was thinking that, given the various (conflicting) narratives around B-33, Todd Abel, and Eric/Granite Mountain, the little question I kept wondering was, is it possible it was Clint Clauson, the Aerial Supervisor Trainee on B-33 who asked it?

    So I tried to find out who he might be. Problem was, I couldn’t find him anywhere. Still haven’t. Starting with in the Resource Orders or the WildCAD logs.

    But, in searching the WildCAD logs for Clint Clauson, I found something very interesting related to the jeeps and the evacuation that I hadn’t caught before. Which is kind of surprising, because we have discussed it before. Just not while looking at the WildCAD logs. Unless I’ve missed something.

    According to the Aircraft Log:

    06/30/2013 13:42:24 From) B-3 / (To) ALH give Yarnell a heads up that they might need evacuate we have trigger points set up but need need so start pre evac notice and we have spotting in the Ease SIDE
    ————————————————–

    I found no response to that in the Aircraft Log. However, when I got over to the regular log I found this:

    06/30/2013 13:40:08 From) B-3 / (To) ALH give Yarnell a heads up that they might need evacuate we have trigger points set up but need need so start pre evac notice and we have spotting in the Ease SIDE
    ————————————————————-

    The following are, of course, interspersed with various other things, which it is kind of a pita to type. Also, some of these should be in total caps, but, unlike Joy, I have no caps lock key so…….:

    13:49:54 PMB / YARFD Notified of preevacuation notification, they want us to call Denny.

    13:50:38 PETE / YAV 911 Notified County 911 of preevac notification for Yarnell being activated. Pre notification of 1 hour trigger point. Hold notificaiton till we get back to Tina, 928-771-3266 per David.

    13:56:48 PMB / ROY Are we at trigger point to make preevac notification to notification? Per Roy Dana will make 4 hour pre alert to entire town of Yarnell. Gave Roy info on messages to Tina at Yav 911 and EMS Denn Fouk.

    14:02:32 ROY / PMB Type 1 Team in brief 7/1 1500 at Model School ICP.

    14:22:15 ROY / PMB Fire is continuing to wobble and flank to N & W, then moves towards Yarnell, helicopters moved for safety. Things going well, evacs going well, roads not wide enough for ff access and pvt egress. Trying to stay ahead of curve, by noon, fire beh from 10-12 chains per hours to 15-20 per hours, fl 15+ feet. Per Pete TY1 team may make it in for 6/29 1800 inbrief. Roy will be sending email with names for O#s of support people. No safety zone adiqt for struct equipment, 8 primary structures will be effected immediately. Impact should be kept to under 100 homes in Yarnell.

    14:36:50 SWCC / PMB Dugger team will meet 7/1 1200. Changed ROSS order to reflect.

    14:40:18 KM / TOM-SWCC Made changes in Type 1 Team order.

    15:20:54 MAC / WR need A/G freq and a starter kit //for what do you need this ordrs for // need for the Type 1 team //ok this is the 1st time this has been mentioned here in dispatch // ok well let me call roy hold on // ok

    15:34:27 MAC / WR talking to Roy and Howard this should have been order at least 2 hours ago // well I talked to dispatch and this is the first time we have heard about that // well someone drop the ball beecause I was told by Howard that he had already order thru dispatch // ok well ill ask expanded

    15:59:42 OPERATIONS / WW Need to evac Mountaineer Trailer Park, all YCSO, Pam calling.

    16:00:41 PMB / YAV Lauren: Notified of mandatory immediate evacuation of Mountaineir Trailer Park.

    16:02:55 WW / OPERATI Call on towers not answer YCSO has been notified

    16:03:37 B-33 / WR will place additional 6 HEAVYs due to Wind shift 600 structures threatenwe have structures on both flanks of the fire and Yarnell is still treaten to the SE and there is a community to the north T Storms and pushing the fire in multiple directions

    16:10:41 PMB / DANA Notified about contract with YAV 911 per Dana, started mandatory evac of Yrnell, about 30 minutes ago, Peeple Valley was notified about 4 hours ajo.

    That’s the end of things having to do with evacuations messages on WildCAD. At least this part of it. Hmm, I think I’ll check to see what else might have been logged before this. (I’m on a stuffed computer so this is SLOOOOOOOW.

    —————————————————-
    06/29/2013

    22:07:49 Russ / WR need YSCO to cll me direct on some evacuation pre planning // copy we willhave then call you

    22:11:57 NORVAL / YCSO Needing to get in contact with someone to set a possible evac plan, no evacs are needed at this time but it needs to be discussed // Let me get your contact information and have someone call you // Norval Tyler 623-44500274 // Will have someone call you back soon

    22:30:08 YCSO / IC Frank Barbaro // updated on fire activity, if it moves to the east its going to go down to Yarnell // What are you thinking on evacs and time wise? // Not tonight but tomorrow and the next day is a possibility the east side is pushing down two to three miles to Muddle Creek 1-2 miles from structures. Time frame is not tonight, would like you to be here on the ground so if it does go that way you are here // Let me contact my sergant and see who we can have down there // My number 928-713-0457 and this is LT Barbaro

    06/30/2013

    00:30:56 IC / ST Significant reduction in fire behavior in past half hour ………Also tied in with Yavapai Co SO for pre plan of reverse 911. East side is still concern but will keep an eye on throughout night and advise -Unsure of total acreage at this time

    06:33:56 GEYER / IC Not a lot of active flame – Southern flank near origin – and east flank west of Yarnell – No north activity – vis smoke west side – .25 mile from origin – 300 acres triggers for evac – any movement north for Peeples Valley 1 miles from structures for Yarnell – Need T-2 orginization – Fly crews on hill off and inbrief – Team can build plan – Structure Protection in place for now – Plan of Action point of contact for dip site.

    11:02:32 CARRIE / IA DISP AA Bar Ranch area is being evacuated // 2 areas for shelters animal located at Hidden Springs Ranch HWY 89 SW East of Hayes Ranch…People and small animals at Yavapai 11 East Sheldon // 1000 hours Type 2 Team Hall Taking over fire.

    12:19:11 1-1 / KM Mobile Creek is possibly being evacuated. Running parallel to the community

    12:27:55 GEYER / KM Communities threatened: Peeple Valley: 400 residences, Yarnell – 700 residences, Model Creek/Double A Bar Ranch 120 residences. 150 people on mandatory evacuations. Mandatory evacuations placed app 1100 on 6/30 for the Model Creek and the Double A Bar Ranch. One hour notification for Yarnell and Peeple Valley Have been encavted which will impact another 1100 residences. Other areas that are downwind of the fire have been avacuated due to smoke issues such as the Hospice Center, 175 residences in Peeples Valley, 359 residences in Yarnell and residences in Model Creek/Double A Bar Ranch. Total of 578 residences are immediately threatened, 20% of homes are secondary or vacation homes. 25 businesses are threatened in Yarnell and preliminary estimates of 2 businesses in Peeples Valley. State HWY 89 threatened, railroad lines w/in 3 miles of the fire to the west. 0.5 miles from Model Creek homes. 1 hour to reach structures. Fir is moving towards HTE northeast and the east. No major roads are considered barriers. The roads within the area are narrow and not passable for equipment responding to the incident and the residences evacuations. Fire activity in the fuels is extreme with heavy chaparral. The area has not experienced a large fire within the past 45 years and there is severe undergrowth. Running and crowning w/in chaparral. 15-20 flame lengths on avg w/30′ flame lengths common. Short to midrange spotting being experienced by ground crews. Moving N and E. Half mile per hour. Increased 700 acres in the last 2 hours.
    —————————————————–

    OK. The next one after that one is the B-3 one.

    So that’s the dispatch communications regarding evacuations on the Yarnell HIll Fire. Interesting to see how this stuff gets communicated about.

    Oh, and by the way, somebody/ies spent all day, hour in and hour out, trying to find and acquire a crash rescue truck and a rehab truck for the Wickenburg Airport. It was only quite late in the afternoon they actually got one. It’s a good thing they, as luck would have it, had no problems at the Wickenburg Airport.

    Now, once I get this thing posted, I can actually look at it.

    Oh, and PS. All typos are either carefully copied by me from the original, or of my own creation.

    Reply

    • And, now that I’ve typed that, and read it (uncluttered by all the rest of the stuff surrounding it), I still don’t really GET IT.

      What I have “understood” is that (and I’m not looking at the above, just remembering), at least to the extent that it MATTERED, from the whole bunches of things I have “read,” is that the Peeples Valley/Model Creek/Double A Bar Ranch areas got some kind of pre-evac notification Sunday morning. and then the Double A Bar Ranch and Model Creek Road area (where Willis’ crew was working) got an actual evacuation order around 11:00 AM. And I haven’t come across any problems regarding that.

      And then, as I currently remember/understand it, Model Creek got an actual evacuation order soon after that.

      In my imagination, I see “Double A Bar Ranch” and “Model Creek” being, at that time, under more urgent pressure. Which is why, the situation, then, in Model Creek was a bit less URGENT. People were getting packed and getting out, but not RACING.

      On the other hand, regarding Model Creek, Willis’ crew with engines and sprinkler systems and such, was actually doing a lot of what actually gets done with who actually does it, in the realm of “Structure Protection 101.” (That thing we get a bit hung up about sometimes regarding this fire.) They weren’t doing it with a Hotshot Crew. They WERE using a Type 2 Handcrew. And THAT is where Todd Abel was positioned when the Deployment happened. And where the VLAT was laying down retardant. Which, I think, given aerials I’ve seen, actually made a difference.

      As I imagine this in my head, I have NO CLUE how the evacuation “went’ for the folks who were living along Model Creek Road. It could have been kind of intense, but NOTHING like Glen Ilah. But somebody may have a different story.

      During the whole “media visits the fire” thing that I think happened on Wednesday, apparently they visited a house that had been burned down in that Model Creek Road area. I have yet to find out exactly which one on Google Earth it is. I definitely tried. I couldn’t find it on the map I saw of the burned properties in Yarnell. But that map only showed Yarnell and Glenn Ilah. It didn’t even show Double A Bar Ranch (which mostly burned down) much less Model Creek Road much less Peeples Valley.

      OK back to Peeples Valley. I’ve seen quite a few videos and read quite a few stories about Peeples Valley. The general impression I get is that they were gradually getting out, as the fire increasingly appeared to be heading RIGHT TOWARD them, with a VENGEANCE. But I also think some people didn’t leave. They were ready to, but they didn’t.

      And, then, as it turned out, they didn’t even have to. Because before the fire got there, which it was definitely headed to, with a VENGEANCE, it “miraculously” stopped (right while Willis’ crew was setting that back-burn to try to protect it), and stood up and slowly started turning around. Around somewhere before 4 PM. And that was where Willis was still positioned, on that back-burn, when the Deployment happened.

      I have no idea when the inhabitants of the Sickles Road area got an actual evacuation notice. Were they considered part of “Model Creek Road” or a part of “Peeples Valley”? I don’t know. Were they ordered to “Get Out Now” at 11 in the morning? Or later? I don’t know.

      But the first place that fire started heading before 4 PM was straight at Sickles Road. And there was quite a stand taken there. Using Engine Crews and helicopters and SEATS. Big time. Musser had gone there and brought some engines and stuff there. And I think they managed to save everything there.

      And then, also at that time was the evacuation of the Mini-Mart. OK, I’ll hit the wildCAD for that. We have a time for that:

      “15:59:42 OPERATIONS / WW Need to evac Mountaineer Trailer Park, all YCSO, Pam calling.

      16:00:41 PMB / YAV Lauren: Notified of mandatory immediate evacuation of Mountaineir Trailer Park.”

      And, of course we’ve seen many photos of THAT scene!! It was pretty insane.

      But it didn’t burn, “miraculously.” Because the fire was still TURNING.

      And, of course, nobody could have predicted that. With outflows from a thunderstorm coming from the northeast.

      And, so now we finally get to Yarnell, including Glen Ilah.

      And multiple narratives of some version of “We got no warning.” Or “not enough” warning. And I believe that, given the consequences. And I’ve been all along seriously stumped on this.

      Which is why I have read every narrative I could find and watched every video I could find. And, frankly, I come up with………..confusion. Which is why I decided to peruse and publish, today, this WildCAD log, because I thought it might shed some light on this confusing thing.

      Reply

      • I wrote:

        “And, of course, nobody could have predicted that. With outflows from a thunderstorm coming from the northeast.”

        With tongue in cheek.

        Reply

        • I mean, seriously, if NOBODY grasped that this fire was ultimately gonna be heading toward the southwest, with outflow boundaries hitting it from a thunderstorm approaching it from the northeast…….

          ………..am I missing something????

          Reply

      • reply to:
        As I imagine this in my head, I have NO CLUE how the evacuation “went’ for the folks who were living along Model Creek Road. It could have been kind of intense, but NOTHING like Glen Ilah. But somebody may have a different story.

        I will look into this…I am meeting to look at some photos from that area soon.

        Reply

    • OK. What we have regarding Yarnell itself.

      We have a 12:28 PM notice from Geyer saying everything’s going to hell in a handbasket on this fire with “359 residences in Yarnell” “immediately threatened.”

      And then we have this from B-3 (who we know realized, somewhere around 12:30-ish, that this fire was most likely going to reverse itself and head toward Yarnell that afternoon, but didn’t tell anybody that except for Rance Marquez):

      “06/30/2013 13:40:08 (From) B-3 / (To) ALH give Yarnell a heads up that they might need evacuate we have trigger points set up but need need so start pre evac notice and we have spotting in the Ease SIDE”

      OK that’s a “might.” It also includes a “need to start pre-evac.” Did anybody in Yarnell/Glen Ilah actually get any kind of actual pre-evacuation notice in this post 1:40 PM framework?

      And, then, I have to say, I see a bunch of bumbllng around.

      “13:50:38 PETE / YAV 911 Notified County 911 of preevac notification for Yarnell being activated. Pre notification of 1 hour trigger point. Hold notificaiton till we get back to Tina, 928-771-3266 per David.

      13:56:48 PMB / ROY Are we at trigger point to make preevac notification to notification? Per Roy Dana will make 4 hour pre alert to entire town of Yarnell. Gave Roy info on messages to Tina at Yav 911 and EMS Denn Fouk.”

      Did “Dana” actually make that “4 hour pre alert to entire town of Yarnell” anywhere after 2 PM that afternoon? Who got it” What was done with it?

      The only next thing I know is that, somewhere around 3:50 Gary Cordes “called for” an evacuation of Yarnell. I don’t see anything regarding that in the WildCAD. And, to be honest, at this moment, I don’t know who he sent that to.

      Was there any kind of coherent coordinated communication going on between Roy Hall and Dana and Gary Cordes about any of this??????? Or was it just more “dust in the wind?”

      And then, finally, we have:

      “16:10:41 PMB / DANA Notified about contract with YAV 911 per Dana, started mandatory evac of Yrnell, about 30 minutes ago.”

      And so that’s, via the WildCAD record, the record.

      Reply

      • If I were one of the homeowners of Yarnell, to be quite brutally honest, I would totally give up on trying to hold Arizona Department of Forestry accountable for the loss of my house, even though it’s really obvious they blew the Initial Attack. Because that’s counterbalanced by your blowing of your responsibility for getting serious about creating Defensible Space.

        But I would also grab hold of, by my teeth and my fingernails and everything else I could use (heck, I”ve even used paperclips to hold on to things, and don’t forget pliers and even duck tape – fishing wire is good also) this whole confusion in the record about your pre-evacuation and evacuation notices.

        THIS is where I think you got SCREWED. Big time.

        There is no way in hell you should have been fleeing that fire, with just about nothing with you that you could grab in those last minutes, including just your pajamas and your flip-flops.

        I can’t tell who, exactly, is responsible for this piece of this nightmare. Was it Arizona Department of Forestry? I don’t know. Was it Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office? I don’t know.

        But if I were you, I would never never never never give up on finding out. And holding whoever was responsible accountable. Because, after picking my way through these communications, I’m pretty sure you got screwed.

        In a way that, apparently, mostly nobody else did.

        Reply

        • They friggin had PLENTY of time and PLENTY of warning and PLENTY of reason to tell you somewhere between (and not later than) about noon and 2 PM:

          “You need to pack up what matters most to you and EVACUATE because this fire is about to head toward you. Big time. And here’s your FOUR hour notice to do that. Which means you have FOUR hours to do that. And I”m sorry to say this but you’ve got to get out. Now.”

          And, as it would turn out, a FOUR hour notice, at that time, wouldn’t have been enough. But, at least it would have been a start. And, from what I can see, I don’t think you even got THAT. Instead you got total chaos after 4 PM. WAY too late.

          Seriously, from what I see, THIS is where your case is.

          Reply

          • I actually notified Congress and some in Yarnell when on the Weavers on 6-30-13 via my cell sending a photo to “prepare” the important items and be alert and cautious and even told retired sheriff, my bible study gal and my family. I did not feel it was TIME but just be prepared was all…

            Reply

            • Joy, thank you for that.

              Do you have any idea when you did that?

              Of course, it wasn’t YOUR JOB to do that.

              But seriously, given all the narratives about how people who, somehow, found out it was time to evacuate, contacting other people via cellphones to evacuate, this is a typical part of this narrative.

              And I totally understand that part of the problem was that people who no longer had landlines and who didn’t know to put themselves on “the list” were “outside the loop.”

              But still. I really believe “the system” waited WAY too long to take seriously the fact that the weather was turning that fire around and driving it to the southwest.

              Hmmmmmmmm. What POSSIBLY could that POSSIBLY be related to.

              A Plan that included the Granite Mountain Hotshots????

              Reply

              • Joy, thank you for that.

                Do you have any idea when you did that?

                ALL THROUGHOUT THE DAY I UPDATED THEM- LAST ONE WAS 3:33PM AND 5:11PM

                Of course, it wasn’t YOUR JOB to do that.
                IN A SENSE AS THE DESERT WALKER SOME ELDERLY JUST EXPECT IT FROM ME SO MAY NOT BE MY JOB BUT SOME DO EXPECT IT—

                But seriously, given all the narratives about how people who, somehow, found out it was time to evacuate, contacting other people via cellphones to evacuate, this is a typical part of this narrative.

                And I totally understand that part of the problem was that people who no longer had landlines and who didn’t know to put themselves on “the list” were “outside the loop.”
                THAT WHOLE AREA I PLAN TO GO DEEPER STREET BY STREET SO THE WORLD CAN SEE HOW MIXED UP AND CHAOTIC IT WAS THROUGH THE WHOLE COMMUNITY

                But still. I really believe “the system” waited WAY too long to take seriously the fact that the weather was turning that fire around and driving it to the southwest. DIFFERENT PERCEPTIONS ON THIS— SOME WERE FINE WITH IT AND SOME NOT

                Hmmmmmmmm. What POSSIBLY could that POSSIBLY be related to.

                A Plan that included the Granite Mountain Hotshots????

                >????????????????

                Reply

          • That evacuation notice should have been in effect before 11 am from where we were watching on the mountain. At about 10:30 am that fire had already begun to blow up big time —had reached the lower areas of the Weaver range where the manzanita was so dense. By 11:30 it was in full blast and had taken over that area that I had Joy time to be 14 minutes. The fireworks were on and moving fast toward Peoples Valley — and as far as Joy and I were concerned–I knew it was time to evacuate our post in case the wind changed. I could feel the change when I topped out and so did Marsh in his radio comments. Shows again as Gary Olsen would say the inept way that whole scenario was handled.

            Reply

            • Reply to Sonny post on June 25, 2015 at 3:38 pm

              >> Sonny said…
              >>
              >> At about 10:30 am that fire had already begun to
              >> blow up big time —had reached the lower areas of
              >> the Weaver range where the manzanita was so dense.

              At 7:00 am on Sunday morning, when Eric Marsh and Todd Abel were standing in the parking lot of the Yarnell Hill Fire Station, looking out a the fire ( as it was at 7:00 AM ) and deciding what “the initial plan” was going to be… the whole IDEA was that GM would very quicky establish and ‘anchor’… and the arriving DOZER would improve those “Jeep Trails” out there running in a SOUTH-TO-NORTH direction at the base of the slope and establish an EAST FLANK.

              In other words… the whole idea at 7:00 AM was to use “south-to-north” Jeep Trails to keep the fire contained to the slopes out there and never “coming down” into the valley itself.

              As you just noted… by 10:30 AM that “Initial Plan” was a joke.

              The fire had already progressed both north AND east… and was already further east of the very Jeep Trails they had thought they were going to use as the EAST FLANK of the fire.

              That’s when the “plan” had to fall back to using east-to-west two-tracks instead… such as the one that ran out to the old-grader from the top of the Sesame Clearing area.

              So even that dozer work on that east-to-west ‘Sesame Trail’ leading out to the old-grader and then on to the ‘explosives’ sign was already just a “fallback” ( backup ) plan.

              The INITIAL PLAN had ALREADY FAILED by 10:30 AM… and yet there were no evacuation notices being given.

              ( NOTE: This is all documented in the ADOSH interviews ).

              >> Sonny also wrote…
              >>
              >> By 11:30 it was in full blast and had taken over that
              >> area that I had Joy time to be 14 minutes. The
              >> fireworks were on and moving fast toward Peoples
              >> Valley — and as far as Joy and I were concerned–I
              >> knew it was time to evacuate our post in case
              >> the wind changed. I could feel the change when I
              >> topped out and so did Marsh in his radio comments.
              >> Shows again as Gary Olsen would say the inept way
              >> that whole scenario was handled.

              By 12:30 PM… ‘Bravo 3’ ( Rusty Warbis and Paul Lenmark ) had arrived over the fire to replace Rory Collins as Air Attack because Collins had to leave to get refueled.

              On their (quote) “first turn around the fire”, Warbis and Lenmark noted the following things…

              1. Whatever Granite Mountain was doing was already pointless. Warbis and Lenmark were so sure GM was already “out of the game” that they said they were sure they must have been just “staging” out there on the ridge and waiting for their next assignment.

              2. The Blue Ridge Hotshots were doing NOTHING but hanging around their Crew Carriers. Warbis and Lenmark said their impression there was that Blue Ridge needed to either ‘engage the fire” or get the hell out of where they were ( the Sesame clearing area ).

              3. Warbis and Lenmark took one look at the same fire behavior you and Joy had been witnessing ( and timed ) and they were then SURE that the fire was GOING to go into Yarnell ( and Glen Ilah ) THAT afternoon… during THAT burn cycle.

              They were so sure of this ( and that GM was “out of the game” and Blue Ridge was worthless ) that they decided to start spending hundreds of thousands of dollars laying a basically worthless line or retardant all the way from the west ridge and over to the eastern foothills near Highway 89.

              And they decided to lay this line of retardant just directly on top of the explosive manzanita out there in “the bowl”.

              So they started doing that just thinking “Well.. SOMEONE has to try and do SOMETHING to protect Yarnell… because the fire is going into that town TODAY”.

              So this is now all happening by 1:00 PM.

              And there will still evacuations in progess.

              It would be another HOUR before even the mysterious pre-evacuation notices would go out.

              Bravo 3 communicated their impressions, their expectations and their plans to (apparently) only one person in fire command…

              Division Z Rance Marquez.

              And then he ( Marquez ) basically just “disappeared” for the rest of the day and passed none of this crucial intel/knowledge coming from Air Attack Bravo 3 on to anyone.

              Reply

              • Apologies. BAD Typo up above.

                I left the entire word NO out of a sentence.

                The two sentences above should have read like this…

                “So this is now all happening by 1:00 PM.
                And there were still NO evacuations in progess.”

                Reply

      • Reply to Marti Reed post on June 24, 2015 at 6:37 pm

        >> Marti Reed said…
        >>
        >> 13:56:48 PMB / ROY Are we at trigger point to make preevac notification
        >> to notification? Per Roy Dana will make 4 hour pre alert to entire town
        >> of Yarnell. Gave Roy info on messages to Tina at Yav 911 and EMS
        >> Denn Fouk.”
        >>
        >> Did “Dana” actually make that “4 hour pre alert to entire town of Yarnell”
        >> anywhere after 2 PM that afternoon? Who got it” What was done with it?
        >>
        >> The only next thing I know is that, somewhere around 3:50 Gary Cordes “
        >> called for” an evacuation of Yarnell. I don’t see anything regarding that in
        >> the WildCAD. And, to be honest, at this moment, I don’t know who
        >> he sent that to.

        According to Cordes himself… he sent it to OPS1 Todd Abel.

        From Gary Cordes’ one-and-only ADOSH interview on September 11, 2013

        NOTE: At this point in the interview, Dave Larsen is still just going
        over Gay Cordes’ official ‘Unit Log’ with him, line by line, So that’s the first sentence
        below. Dave Larsen is just reading the next line from Cordes’ Unit Log.

        Cordes’ Unit Log says it happened circa 3:50 PM and not 3:50 PM.

        If it happened at 3:40 PM… then it happened just seconds before Blue Ridge Hotshot Brian Frisby was about to ‘accidentally’ come across Brendan McDonough coming down off his Lookout mound.

        Q2 = Dave Larsen, WFA / ADOSH investigator ( Rest in Peace )
        A = SPGS1 Gary Cordes
        ——————————————————————
        1209 Q2: Uh, flanks approximately three, thre 1209 e miles became active with the head
        1210 moving south, southwest. Um, 1530, uh, 1540, Yarnell was actually a trigger
        1211 point met and uh, evacuated as requested.
        1212
        1213 A: Yes.
        1214
        1215 Q2: Is that right?
        1216
        1217 A: Yes.
        1218
        1219 Q2: Okay, your – you were, you were requesting that or?
        1220
        1221 A: I’m the one that made that request, yes.
        1222
        1223 Q2: Who’d you make it to?
        1224
        1225 A: I made it operations.
        1226
        1227 Q2: Okay. Uh, Able?
        1228
        1229 A: Yes.
        ———————————————————————-

        Reply

        • Sorry. Typo above. Meant to say ‘3:40 PM’ in a place where I said ‘3:50 PM’.

          Line above should have been…

          Cordes’ Unit Log says it happened circa 3:40 PM and not 3:50 PM.

          Reply

  54. Gary Olson saie JUNE 23, 2015 AT 4:08 PM

    “A group of the GMIHC widows want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars the public gave them to buy the deployment site so they can keep the public from going their to visit it or grieve there. Really?”

    Am I missing something? This sent me off on a quest to see if I had missed some news recently (as I’ve been off focused on other things) and I didn’t find anything.

    Apparently I hadn’t. So.

    The widows haven’t been given a dime by the State to purchase the land. The money has been given to State Parks to purchase the land.

    They still may WANT to (along with various other folks we’ve discussed), but, in order to do that, they have to come up with their own money to do it.

    And, yeah, I agree with WTKTT’s take on where Darrell Willis is at with it. I could turn out to be wrong, but I’m, right now. willing to bet my money that, all things considered, the “local” wildland fire-fighter community would rather the land go “public” than “private.”

    Given what has become, for some time, the “Tradition,” regarding these sites, when possible. I think it would be REALLY REALLY BAD OPTICS for the families to stand in the way, much less with support of Prescott Firefighters.

    I mean, what makes the Granite Mountain 19 and more “precious” or “special” (or that land more “sacred”) than any other of the wildland fire-fighters that died on fires, who are honored by both fire-fighters and the public (both for a reason).

    That would be a real slap in the face, I would think.

    (Sure would be nice to be able to see the meeting minutes, though, just sayin’ ……… crickets…………

    But, I wouldn’t put it past one (or more) landowner/s to try to buy it, though. That wouldn’t surprise one teensy tiny bit.

    Reply

    • Marti,

      I am not going back right now at least, to find exactly were the information came from that “a group” of GMIHC widows want or did want at one time to buy the deployment site so they could control who was permitted to visit the deployment site, but I think it was from articles in the local newspapers.

      And in any case, that is not what you are challenging. What you are challenging is whether I said the widows had been given state money to buy the land. So the issue seems to be of my use of the word public which was in error. I was using the word as in money obtained from the general public in the form money that came from donations and fund raising by the general public. However, I think that if you look at the context in which I used the word, I don’t think there should be any confusion as to what I meant.

      Nevertheless, let me try it again. I believe that if “a group” of GMIHC widows want to buy the deployment site that is scheduled to be auctioned off by the state of Arizona for a minimum of $300,000, but may go as high as $500,000, the money that the widows are or were planning on using must be coming from donations and fund raisers that came from the general public that were therefore private funds that were given to other private individuals (the widows) to compensate them above and beyond what their employers compensation was, which was based on workman’s compensation law.

      Now, if you want to split hairs, I don’t know if “a group” of GMIHC widows may be independently wealthy perhaps, and their husbands were working as hotshots because they liked the work so much? I don’t know if the money they are or were planning on using to buy the land may have come from private people for that purpose, say…Ross Perot? I don’t know if “a group” of widows perhaps had some wealthy relatives die recently and give them an inheritance? Or maybe they are or were planning on using their own money they earned from their own labor or perhaps their husbands labor before they were killed and the money was in savings accounts? Or maybe they are or were planning on using their own implied limited funds (I say limited because if their personal funds weren’t limited, they why did they need millions of dollars in addition to what their state compensation was, maybe that is horribly unfair, maybe they did?) and so therefore they are going to use their own money to buy the land and are planning on using the money form the donations to provide for their themselves and their children? Which in my opinion would be like someone on welfare using public assistance money (food stamps or card) o buy approved items and their “own” money to buy unapproved items at the register at the same time.

      In any case, the argument can certainly be made that it is none of my business what “a group” of GMIHC widows spend “their” money on and that certainly includes hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy the deployment site in order to restrict who gets to visit the site and grieve. However, human nature being what it is, since I donated money to the GMIHC families to help compensate them for their loss, and now that “a group” of widows wants or wanted to buy the deployment site even with money that fell from the sky, specifically for the purpose to control and restrict who gets to visit the site, which would I presume be me, especially since I would not apply to their regulatory body to obtain a valid permit or to be escorted to the site by one of their guides, I am offended. Maybe I shouldn’t be, and that just proves what an asshole I am, but in my defense, I did tell everyone at the very beginning that I was never paid to make friends by my employer and in fact, I was actually paid to be an asshole by you, the general public to go out 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to take of your problems and risk my life doing it. Maybe that fit into my existing personality and I was already an asshole and therefore it wasn’t much of a leap for me, but maybe I used to be a nice guy and after 32 years of risking my life and my family’s future on a daily basis to take care of your problems on your behalf, I have become a terminal asshole. I don’t know, I’m not complaining, I have very few tangible possessions, but I do have a very fair retirement check that comes on the first of the month, I did my part and now you are doing yours, thank you. I have a number of physical issues as a result of on the job traumatic and environmental condtijons, but onece again, I signed on for the job knowing that was possible. At least I didn’t end up being burned alive as the GMIHC were, and for that I am truly grateful, because that would have been a really bad way to go.

      Now, I have a hard earned reputation of being “that guy” on this thread who will call it like I see it, and so of those calls you are going to like and some of those calls will probably offend you. But like a supervisor once told me after a really bad complaint against me came in, “You can’t please all of the people, all of the time.” And just like the New Mexico BLM State Director once told me in his office, “Gary, you do good work…but you leave to many bodies on the trail.” To which I replied nothing, I didn’t know what to say because I had been only working for the BLM for one year. And like the Arizona BLM State Director once told me, “What are you going to do now Gary…call 60 Minutes.” To which I replied, “No, I know how the game is played.”, because by that time, I had been working for the agency for 18 years.

      Now back to “a group” of GMIHC widows who want or wanted to buy the deployment site in order to restrict who gets to go there to grieve, I think as a minimum, the “optics” as they say, of that decision looks bad and I don’t care what you (not Marti, everyone) think about it. I don’t like it.

      Reply

      • I think AZ already appropriated money to buy the land, and gave it to the quasi-public committee that is deciding details. So it definitely started as public dollars.

        Since it is public land now and will be bought by public money when ownership changes hands, it does seem all the more strange that access is now limited. There is no public safety or public order reason to keep it locked up now.

        They also are buying a large piece of land — closer to a ranch than a ranchette. The AZ legislature seemed fine with buying that much land, and apparently there is talk of buying even more down the road, so fair enough, but it’s striking to me that this isn’t just 2 or 5 or 10 acres for a memorial at the actual site. Seems to imply something more like a true battlefield park.

        Reply

        • One of the “first orders of business” for the newly formed Yarnell Hill Memorial Site Board was dictated by the legislation itself.

          In the original House version of the Bill… State Representative Karen Fann ( who represents Prescott ) amended the legislation at the last minute to include a CLAUSE which said that a small group of “widows” of the deceased would get “first dibs” on buying the land.

          That is the version that PASSED in the Arizona House.

          The Arizona Senate took that “widows get first dibs” clause OUT of their version of the Bill… but they didn’t kill the idea. They just made it a “first order of business” for the Memorial Board the bill was forming to DECIDE ( by a vote ) whether the “widows” should get “first dibs” or not.

          That ‘vote’ did, in fact, take place as a “first order of business” on the part of the newly formed Yarnell Hill Memorial Site Board.

          The “widows” lost.

          The Board voted that Arizona should buy the land instead.

          There was never any statement from “the widows” about losing that vote AND the dashing of their original plans to acquire the land themselves.

          So will they still how up to bid on the land? Who knows?
          I guess we’ll find out in just a few days.

          AFTER that initial vote that Arizona should buy the land… the next “action item” was to decided HOW MUCH LAND?

          The ORIGINAL proposal was to just buy the EAST half of that 360 acre Section 9 and end up owning basically from the two-track that ran up on the high-ridge ( and where the Descent Point was located ) all the way to the east and right up to the fence defining the west edge of the Boulder Springs Ranch.

          I think that only amounted to about 200 acres.

          Somewhere in the process… that got changed to buying ALL 360 acres, and the ENTIRE “South-half-of-Section 9” in Township 10 north, Range 05 West.

          It appears that the Arizona Land Department didn’t want to end up with some worthless, oblique piece of property sitting west of the memorial site that would still be State Trust Land, following the auction. They must have wanted the Board to either buy ALL 360 acres ( the entire south half of Section 9 )… or nothing at all.

          So I don’t think the SIZE of the purchase ( all 360 acres ) has much to do with anything other than that’s what the Arizona Land Department preferred them to do.

          The Board might have said… “We don’t want all 360 acres” but Arizona Land might have then said “Well… we’re going to auction off ALL 360 acres of the south half of section 9… so if you don’t want some ‘weird neighbor’ sitting next to your memorial site you better bid on all 360 acres”.

          Reply

          • Correction for above.

            The SOUTH half of Section 9, Township 10 North, Range 05 West amounts to 320 acres… not 360 as I kept typing in the message above.

            So everywhere it says ‘360 acres’ up above… I should have been typing ‘320 acres’.

            Reply

      • OK, Gary, I did read you incorrectly. I did translate “public” into “that State money.”

        Which is why I was, like, wait a minute, did I miss something??

        And no I don’t need to split hairs. But I was also, in my own brain, conjuring up something along the lines of, hmmmmmmmm could they be (especially given how that conversation was going) in cahoots with a bunch of Prescott Firefighters to finance this, all things considered, since I wasn’t assuming they could afford to do all by this their very own selves.

        As a matter of fact, that idea had been percolating inside my head all along. I had been, like “Where are they gonna get at least $500 grand to do this?????”

        Actually I hadn’t even THOUGHT about them cashing out a fairly large chunk of all that donation and benefits money (or getting a loan based on it), so now I totally understand what you actually meant when you said “Public.” I was just thinking they would have HAD to find some “benefactors.”

        And you can RANT ALL YOU WANT about that, JUSTIFIABLY.

        Which just underscores what I said about the OPTICS of this whole thing. And I was thinking more of it being “pitched into” by the Prescott Fire Fighters.

        But, I have to say, the OPTICS of the Widows, Inc., “all by themselves.” laying $500,000.01 “in cash” on that table, to pull the rug out from under the State Parks acquisition, is going to go over, in the State of Arizona, equally REALLY REALLY badly, also.

        There’s already a LOT of people ALREADY pissed off about the money. And right now I’m not at all pissed off about the money. I believe they deserve every cent they can get, all things considered.

        But using THAT MONEY to buy their little piece of heaven on that mountain would totally end it for me.

        And I didn’t send any money to “the families.” I didn’t have any to send. So I spent about 20+ hours a week for the past year and a half (part of it while my mother was dying) donating my time to find THE TRUTH.

        Which I think we have come pretty damn close to finding, if I may say so myself. Even if it’s a REALLY Inconvenient Truth. At least for some people.

        Oh, and yeah, I also bought a white “Be Better/Yarnell 19” bracelet, which I have been proudly wearing this whole time. Because I think Julieanne Ashcraft is a totally awesome and majorly inspiring woman.

        Reply

        • And, now that I think about it, “The Widows Inc” is not just an analogy. They have to be registered as a business in Arizona in order to do this.

          That’s REALLY gonna go over well.

          Im guessing that, if they’re as smart as I think they are, they’ve been figuring out most of these roadblocks, themselves (with help), already.

          Which is why, currently, I’m not thinking they’re gonna Do It.

          And, then I chuckle, LOL! Who knows????????

          I guess all surprises are possible, on this STILL BURNING wildfire. THAT’S been nothing new!!!

          Reply

        • Well…once again, without looking up the specifics, I think there was more than 12 million dollars awarded to all of the families of the GMIHC by a committee made up of local officials, which I do remember included Tony Sciacca, based on their perceived need.

          Which I take to mean that a single hotshot without dependents family would be awarded much less than a hotshot who had a wife who wasn’t employed or necessarily employable under the conditions and had children would be awarded much more, which certainly could mean that some widows received more that 1 million dollars in addition to their workman’s compensation money that is normally paid out to the families of dead firefighters.

          And of course this brings up one of my favorite pet peeves, to my knowledge there wasn’t a single penny raised for any of the dead federal hotshots from the other disaster fires with hotshot fatalities.

          So yes, if I had more than 1 million dollars in addition to all of the regular workman’s compensation, which in the case of the fulltime firefighters could be equal to their original salary and full benefit package and I had several friends who shared my opinion that access to the deployment site should be restricted, I would think about buying the land as well.

          Especially if somebody with deep pockets might be backing the effort with even more money. But yes, that would certainly be wrong in my opinion.

          Reply

          • I will also further opine, based on my personal experience regarding workman’s compensation since I actually had to choose between taking a medical disability retirement at age 30 due to damage to my lungs and larynx from smoke inhalation or a different job which in my case and as a result of the wisdom of USFS management, was to clean out outhouses and pick up trash in campgrounds.

            Now…I signed the document accepting the position of cleaning outhouses from being an elite best of the best hotshot superintendent because not only did I want to keep working for the USFS…but there are several other problems with workman’s comp working for the federal government, which I am pretty sure would be the same problems with it working for any other governmental body.

            1. I believed they would find a way to disqualify me after a few years so I didn’t trust them. Now of course, this wouldn’t be a problem for the spouses or children of the GMIHC but it was for me.

            2. Workman’s comp is based on your BASE salary and does not include in the case of a wildland firefighter, overtime, hazard pay, night time differential, Sunday differential or holiday pay, which can come close to doubling some people’s salary.

            3. Workman’s compensation does not account for future pay raises due to increased duties and responsibilities. For example I would have retired on the base salary of a GS-7, but by sticking with it and getting lucky I ended up retiring at the equivalent of a GS-15. I’m sure that many of those who died fighting wildfires, not just the GMIHC, had similar or much greater potential to do well with their lives.

            And in any case, I am pretty sure everyone who got money for their loved ones deaths, or will get money in the future would trade that money in a heartbeat to have their loved ones back, but that is not the point, I just don’t think any of them should be talking about restricting access to the deployment site based on their personal opinions of who is eligible to go there to grieve or simply visit to see what the lay of the land was or for any purpose (legal) important to them.

            Although I do want to say there is nothing wrong with a job cleaning outhouses, somebody has to do it, I just wasn’t ready after being told how special I was for so many years for the reality of what the USFS management really thought of me.

            I also want to point out since this is my soapbox, that the first thing the USFS thought of to do with me was to FIRE ME and it was only after I researched the famous FSM (Forest Service Manual) that was the Bible that everybody lived by, and proved they couldn’t do what they wanted to do and filed a grievance, that I was offered the shit house cleaning job. So…just in case anybody thinks working for he government is a walk in the park, it’s not.

            Bottom line, it is perfectly reasonable to think that Jesse Steed or even one of the diggers on the crew would have been capable of retiring as the Chief of the Prescott Fire Department if the Prescott Fire Department hadn’t killed them. Sorry, it’s just my opinion.

            Reply

        • Yes, Marti. Thank you for reading it right. Well, Brent Yadon asked us

          “What piece of information will be the “closure” information that you hikers would be satisfied with and move on?”

          That indeed was a good question.

          Now, I ask what bit of information would prove to me that my son was not murdered?

          I have always felt that the police did a cursory investigation as we have seen in this investigation.

          So my closure will be when I know what actually happened that destroyed nineteen men’s lives.

          I ask you all on here the same question Brent asked me and Joy.

          Had I not rubbed shoulders with these men and actually saw what was occurring that day than I might be like so many that say they got their money and why bother.

          But I watched Dr. Ted Putnam working for so many years and expending so much of his own time and money to solve the riddle of why thirteen men died than I am inspired not to give up why or trying to understand nineteen men perished in a box canyon.

          We know already that there has been a cover up just by who came to us publicly and privately.

          The photo of the number nineteen above my left shoulder on Christmas night above their point of departure from this world ought to convince anyone that this is not a game.
          Lives that were lost including almost fifty from our communities amount to sixty eight lives. That in itself is the reason that we all should do everything to look for additional information and details and accounts of every life that was involved that weekend including Paul Morin.

          Now, Dr. Ted Putnam did not have closure even after 50 years of the loss of 13 at Mann Gulch nor shall we give up after only two years of attempting to uncover the real reasons these men died and the forty nine since then.

          Note, I am not after money nor do we expect any. I do not give a shit about fame. I lost a son. This is very serious business to me.

          Amen.

          Reply

        • I’m still not sure where the “Widows Inc.” talk is coming from?

          There are multiple memorial efforts — at least one for each of Yarnell and Prescott.

          For the burnover site itself, there’s talk of the appropriated money from the state being only for land, and therefore a nonprofit arm of the memorial commission needing to raise funds for access, etc. once those details are decided. It is likely that in AZ the ability to make private, deductible charitable donations to this type of effort is facilitated by some stature or the other, so they may not even need a separate charitable entity and may be able to use the state to look after any (hopefully segregated) charitable donation funds.

          Earlier in the process, there was some vague talk about families buying the land directly, but I am not that confident that we’ve gone from talk to discrete plans. Particularly so when the state ponied up as much as it did. If we were to do so, it would certainly be with a nonprofit.

          I am often wrong and ready to be corrected. I do believe that the public should have access to the site, without permit, even now, and that they should in the future.

          My gut is that the commission goes for some sort of open-but restricted access, maybe with a finite number of permits per day. I wouldn’t agree with this, and do ask what harm that would guard against, but it wouldn’t be nearly as bad as the current approach of preventing access in a way that isn’t grounded (imo) in the law at all.

          Reply

          • SR…

            See the following new parent comment above…

            It details where this information about “the widows” trying to acquire the land for themselves first came from… and where it was first published by the Associated Press.

            The “widows” approached State Representative Karen Fann ( who represents Prescott ) and ASKED her to write a CLAUSE into the legislation itself giving THEM “first dibs” on the land…

            http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xv/#comment-301026

            As for the term “Widows, Inc.”… I believe that’s just shorthand reference for the reality that in order for ANYONE to be a “successful bidder” on any Arizona State Trust land being put up for auction… you have to be “licensed to do business in the State of Arizona”.

            It is not absolutely KNOWN that anyone other than the State of Arizona’s Yarnell Memorial Board has any intentions of showing up on the steps of the Yavapai County Courthouse just a few days from now, at 11:00 AM on June 30, 2013, to BID on the land….

            But it is also not absolutely KNOWN that someone ( or multiple someones ) will NOT.

            I guess a few seconds after the first bid is made… and whether that is followed by total silence… will be the first moment when we know for sure.

            But when we finally hear the words…

            “Going once. Going twice. Going three times”

            ( LONG PAUSE )

            “SOLD… to XXXXXXXXX for $yyyyyy”.

            Whoever XXXXXXXXXX is has just 72 hours to get themselves “licensed to do business in the State of Arizona” if they have NOT already done so prior to the auction.

            If they don’t… then their bid is VOIDED and ownership either defaults to next highest bidder or ( possibly ) another auction has take place.

            So if XXXXXXXXXX happens to be some loose conglomeration of family members of the deceased… they can’t all just march up to the payment table and all start throwing their individual CASHIER’S CHECKS ( required by law, CASH is no good ) onto the table saying “Here’s mine… here’s mine… here’s mine, etc.”.

            They will have HAD to have formed either a for-profit or not-for-profit entity and be duly registered to “do business” in Arizona.

            So that’s where the “Widows’ Inc.” phrase comes from.

            It’s just referencing that legal requirement.

            Even if there are 8 persons involved… and 7 of them think they can just hand money to the EIGHTH one and have THEM “do their bidding” ( pun intended… which the IRS would have a problem with but that’s another story )… that ONE person is still required to be “Widow, Inc.” or some such registered DBA ( Doing Business As ) entity.

            I really hope when the gavel falls on Sunday, June 30, 2013,
            the XXXXXXXXXX above is “The Arizona State Yarnell Hill Memorial Site Board”.

            Any other XXXXXXXXXX than that… and things area going to get really weird.

            Reply

  55. I have been in and out the past few months of Yarnell. I noticed people who normally come up to say “Good Morning”…I mean go out of their way and day to even greet me to now put their heads down or turn them away when they see me. I know I did not do anything to this person but I did learn recently on last December 2014 event with Chief Ben Palm and fire meeting that I can confirm that Bob K. did state in his assessment this new chief after the YHF does not like Joy A. Collura so it could be small town rubbish rumors flying and they don’t want to greet me because they may be tempted to open up on topic …MUCH LIKE the deputy from YCSO who chooses to ignore some loved ones of the GMHS that knew them since the GMHS was young so I guess I cannot take it personal just people doing what they gotta do.
    I did get seven people last night tell me to show up for taco Tuesday at the legion and they will see if they can gather the photos for me to view…Sonny said why the glum face today Joy? I reckon because people I care for and like do not see the importance of this all…even Roberta Era is backing out of one of her suits so she can just move forward in life. The general attitude from some is the answers are coming out too slow but my reply has never changed…I tell them if I have not or this site or Dr. Ted Putnam seen their photos or heard their account—folks not making a movie or book but just want to gather documented information to properly assess the fire if we have not heard the homeowners accounts than how can one move forward because they may not even know it but they may have the definite piece to this puzzle. Than I am sad because people perceive me as I heard in January 2015 as being obsessed by the fire and that is not accurate. I was the eyewitness at the fire and when I got into evacuation shelter and learned nineteen not one or two but nineteen human beings died and than later learned it was the very men we pass by & spoke to…and ALL those homes lost and ALL the people affected by the fire. it just did not add up because that fire was tight towards Peeples Valley and Congress but very little on Yarnell except that someone this week may of been Bob Powers said they line and the mystery men away from helispot area was for gear or something and that was the first made sense to me out of this all because it hovered so low; fanning the 4 tiny bushes into high flames due to the air hitting it. Marti, you are right I will not be walking away from this fire and its aftermath and always be open to discuss it even if you do not agree with me or not—I want to publicly apologize to all that feel my wanting to continue to piece the puzzle affects you and your life but you also have to remember when you begin to feel such way…I was on top of the Weavers at the fire and so it is not just a local in town trying to cause a problem…I am trying to be a part in remedying the problem by speaking up like so many others should be doing. Is anyone on here going to the second anniversary next week? I am aiming to go and just have to make sure I am allowed in case another is present—what are the rules on it—I think it is okay because its a public event…I think it is so many feet or something….six months and a week left of it…Every time I am in Prescott I look everywhere when entering…I look forward to the day I do not have to…I know the organizing part if happening right now to hike some folks of various disabilities even ones wheelchair bound and not to make a point but because they want to go and no one will guide them to the legal way to go and I now have the state detailed map that we can show them and they are awaiting their state land permits first. They cannot see any of the area they men died but there is a great section you can view alot. They deserve that opportunity and very thankful we will take the time out and patience to do this for them. Why not. We hiked everyone else who asked so why deny a person…

    Reply

    • Marti, you are right I will not be walking away from this fire and its aftermath and always be open to discuss it even if you do not agree with me or not

      correction…in a sense..the first part was mean to you:
      Marti, you are right I will not be walking away from this fire and its aftermath and always be open to discuss it

      this part was meant for everyone:
      even if you do not agree with me or not

      Reply

    • I don’t know if this will help you or not, but sometimes misery loves company. Because of my outspoken participation on this thread and views expressed here and in John Dougherty’s articles I lost my book editor (who lives in Prescott) my mechanic (who is a Christian conservative and I suspect is good friends with Willis and knows the other Bible Thumpers on the crew) and several “friends” and acquaintances in the wildland firefighter community and in the Prescott area. I have also lost my Emeritus Status within said community. So…good luck in that small town.

      This has really hurt me. I don’t need any more friends than the ones I still have, nor do I need a longer Christmas card list, but finding a new book editor I can work with is going to be hard and losing my mechanic last year was a real bitch. All of you probably know how hard it is to find a good (and honest) mechanic.

      If I had it to do all over again…I would.

      Reply

        • I should have added, “because my Jeeps are old and I break them a lot and don’t even know how to add window washer fluid by myself.”

          Reply

          • and I should have added, “And all of that happened last year way before things got toxic. I’m tellin’ ya, those people in Prescott and the wildland firefighting community in general really love the original narrative and they have absolutely ZERO interest in hearing the truth or anything different. No, they can’t handle the truth, and they hate anybody who tells it and their philosophy is to kill the messenger and that will solve the problem.

            Which is just one more reason I am so pissed off by now and blowing the whistle on what was really happened is now not only the right thing to do, but I am actually starting to enjoy it.

            Oh and as long as I’m still pissing people off, I want to tell you one more thing that has been really bothering me for some time.

            A group of the GMIHC widows want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars the public gave them to buy the deployment site so they can keep the public from going their to visit it or grieve there. Really?

            The world as asked to grieve for the GMIHC and we did, and now their memory belongs to all of us…sorry about that, but you can’t have it both ways.

            After the Loop Fire, the Battlement Creek Fire and the South Canyon Fires, the widows of the federal hotshots who died spent all of their time worrying how they were going to raise their kids and support themselves on the fair but modest amount Uncle Sam gave them, which would have been the equivalent to what the GMIHC widows and families got from their employers as part of workman’s comp, and before all of the fund raisers, donations, and lawsuits etc. So…I’m just sayin’, WTF?

            Reply

          • you need Sonny for a mechanic. We have been in tight non functional spots and he somehow just figures it out…he knows vehicles..

            Reply

            • I suspect Sonny knows a lot of things about life in general and how to get around the block and find his way home again.

              Reply

        • crack my ass up. smiley face.

          I too would do it again…and lose the same people’s friendships or more that I do not know of yet if it means I am doing the right thing

          and let me let sonny reply now,,,

          handing him laptop

          ,,,’sonny:

          The job isn’t done yet.

          Reply

        • crack my ass up. smiley face.

          I too would do it again…and lose the same people’s friendships or more that I do not know of yet if it means I am doing the right thing

          and let me let sonny reply now,,,

          handing him laptop

          ,,,’sonny:

          The job isn’t done yet.

          Reply

      • The desire for a wholly-private memorial at the burnover site is quite striking. Even the treatment of the site for the last two years has been striking.

        Battlefield monuments tend to have public access and are almost always respected, as are most graveyards It is quite….different, to take the view that the public can’t be trusted with the site. The types of security concerns that might make sense to me aren’t present here (yes, Jewish graves might face a risk of being defaced in some Muslim countries, etc. but obviously that’s not the case, here, either in terms of where we are as a country or in terms of the religious faiths of the deceased).

        I think it’s important to be very respectful of the fact that everyone grieves in their own way. But, the fact that there is this idea that the site should be treated in a very singular and shut-off way does make me wonder what the drivers are behind that idea. If lots of graves had previously been defaced recently in the area, then maybe I could get it, but no mention of anything like that has ever been made. A simple security camera could address any petty vandalism that might happen once every 5 years. Beyond that, what needs to be kept from the public?

        Reply

        • I think all of this consternation about “who should be allowed to visit the place where they died” has been just a continual manifestation of this “us against them” brotherhood bullshit.

          I think even this small group of widows who State representative Karen Fann made sure had the ‘option’ to buy the land when she first even proposed the current memorial legislation have always hinted that should the get ownership of the site… only firefighters would be allowed to visit there.

          We are the only only ones who understand US.
          We are the only ones who should ever investigate our accidents.
          We are the only ones who know how to honor our dead.

          Even Mike Dudley, one of the current “Fire Gods” and a very high ranking USFS official said, at the end of his presentation to Utah firefighters on June 20, 2014 ( just before the first anniversary )…

          “Uh… it’s critical work that we do… and only us, really, understand what that means, not everyone else that out.. is outside the system”.

          So that’s how even a USFS “Fire God” signed off on his speech.

          “Only WE understand US”.

          It’s like the public is “the enemy” and just the ones who are always too stupid to clear brush away from their houses so we owe then neither the truth nor any consideration.

          Just give us all the money we want… and go away.

          It’s truly weird.

          Reply

          • Darrell Willis is/was firmly ensconced in the TRIAD and has that “triple whammy” membership going on.

            He is/was a “card carrying” member of all of the following…

            1) The FF “brotherhood”.
            2) The evangelical style christianity thing going on in that area.
            3) The Prescott “good old boy” network.

            If anyone would have his own justifications in his own head for “locking down” that deployment site so that only the “brotherhood” or the “faithful” should be the ones who are ever be able to “walk the hallowed ground”… you would think it would be Darrell Willis.

            But that is NOT the case.

            To his credit, Darrell Willis has always been the one who has been consistently reminding Amanda Marsh and everyone else on that State sponsored Yarnell Memorial Site Board that no matter what attempts are made to “lock down” that site… people who don’t have the right “membership cards” will still be finding ways to visit the site on a consistent basis.

            And he is RIGHT.

            Darrell Willis knows that the WORLD was asked to mourn these men… and the WORLD will be finding ways to visit the place they died no matter how insular and “closed off” the “brotherhood” would like it to be.

            Reply

          • You didn’t ask me, but I will give you my opinion anyway, and I believe I have said this very thing in the past here on this thread but it was in a different context.

            As goes the USFS, so goes all other wildland firefighting agencies. They set the tone for the entire culture and lead the way in most if not all aspects. And as you have seen from the GMIHC roster, their influence extends into the other agencies because so many people go their start with the USFS, mostly because they hire so many more people than other agencies do.

            Now here is the “problem.” The USFS looks the U.S. military look like a progressive, free thinking, innovative, culture that is open to new ideas and trying new ways of doing things just for the hell of it. The USFS is still operating like its the 1940’s to the mid 50’s. And what’s more, they like it that way and don’t see any need to change. I really loved working for that agency. With the USFS…tradition is everything.

            Reply

            • that should be “The USFS MAKES the U.S. military look like a progressive, free thinking, innovative, culture that is open to new ideas and trying new ways of doing things just for the hell of it. The USFS is still operating like its the 1940’s to the mid 50’s. And what’s more, they like it that way and don’t see any need to change. I really loved working for that agency. With the USFS…tradition is everything.

              Reply

          • I would like to know the names of the widows who are desiring this place to be private. Joy got an email that until the Memorial Park is organized Debra wants it for the loved ones and firefighters but is not against it being public later on but Amanda Marsh has made it crystal clear her intentions and who are these widows?

            Who else?

            Reply

        • SR is 100 per cent correct and not only should the half acre or less site be available to all but that canyon and trail the men took should be used as a training ground for rookie fire fighters. I have talked to plenty on this issue and all agree that it would be quite a learning experience. It definitely would teach men what not to do and the whys of the mistakes made that day. That is a place that indeed would impress upon the minds of a new man considering the situation at hand. Yes, considering that those men belonged to the nation much as a soldier at war does, to restrict that area to a few private individuals is like fencing the Vietnam Memorial wall to only a few.

          So why not restrict all of Yarnell — do you consider the 49 citizens of less value than the 19 seeing that they could not defend themselves against the onslaught of a bumbled fire action that destroyed lives and homes?

          Here it is even more ridiculous since the local fire chief has to question you and determine if they will accompany you up there. To top it off there are no legal signs restricting the area so no one really knows what is restricted. There needs to be no trespassing signs every 50 feet to be legal–but then some are above the law and regulate without doing it properly.

          There are boulders to either side–maybe like a football field in size where there was no vegetation burned since there is none or negligible amount among the boulders. They certainly had the option to go to either the north or south area and I believe they would have survived. I would be glad to volunteer to be in those boulders if another wild fire or prescribed burn were to occur. I know I would survive there though I might want a small oxygen container since my lungs have been badly compromised since the drop of what one says was a drop of 300,000 gallons of retardant that contaminated the area with NH3. We do know too many have died from that drop–especially old people since the fire. Another one besides Brent Yadon — his neighbor Chaz has now just this week been diagnosed with COPD It is well known that a young man can loose a lung and do pretty well But older people who have already compromised lungs are pushed over the brink in many cases– and in others they suffer compromised health issues. Lack of oxygen due to lung tissue destroyed causes plenty of other health problems in the body. The heart and brain especially need sufficient oxygen. But do we hear about this or are the fire fighters informed of the real dangers. Do keep your older folks away from ammonia solutions–the same chemical compounds as used in the slurry. Do know the orange retardant used next Yarnell has never had a study as to long or short term effects on health. They think it is inert.

          As an underground miner we sometimes used silk covered glass capsules which we would burst with our fingers then smell to cure “powder” headaches. Dynamite has plenty of nitroglycerine and in the smoke from a blast as well. It is a terrible headache to bear so the ammonia cures the headache. But they don’t tell you it also destroys lung cells which never regenerate. Again you can loose a lung and some and still function but not as a marathon runner or bike racer. Eventually you will find yourself having problems even to walk across a football field.

          The heart pills they gave me are nitroglycerine–but then how do you wind up with a heart with so much dead tissue? That I know in my case is due to bad lungs from years of mining and from Joy and I doing so many hikes here and living near the retardant in Yarnell. Well I learned all this off line just within the past year or so since the fire simply because I was researching due to lung problems both Joy and I are suffering. Joy is a young 44, I am an old 71–Happy birthday Joy on July 1. But it would be happier without the lung problems and knowing about the 49 that have died since the fire along with the young men that were led to their deaths. Do the math, Yarnell is skewed way off the chart considering there are only 650 living in Yarnell.

          Reply

          • Another great post, Sonny. Thank you.

            Yes… a “Retardant Effects” study should definitely be done… either by Arizona Forestry or USDA. Preferably BOTH ( together with EPA ).

            Reply

  56. Reply to ‘Retired with 38′ post on June 21, 2015 at 8:19 pm

    >> ‘Retired with 38′ said…
    >>
    >> WTKTT,
    >>
    >> Thinking back to 2001, I am pretty sure that PFD representative introduced himself
    >> as the Chief of PFD – so that would have been Willis. But again what really struck
    >> me was the hell bent commitment to gain type 1 status – they hadn’t even
    >> completed their first season as a fuels crew and he was already talking IHC. Just
    >> seems odd to me.

    2001 is just after the City of Prescott got tied into those new ‘National Fire Plan’ (Federal) grants and had been designated as a ‘Beta’ site for the new national level FIREWISE program.

    That where the money to create the Fuels Crew came from in the first place… but Willis knew they wouldn’t be able to depend on that kind of grant stream forever.

    But the way Darrell Willis himself tells it… it was ONLY after they had successfully transformed the Fuels Crew into a Type 2 IA crew… and proved they could make money with it… that they decided to go for the “big bucks” and the ability to charge the crew out at the Type 1 IHC Hotshot paygrade.

    So according to Willis’ testimony to ADOSH… no one was thinking about the Type 1 IHC status until AFTER they had ( in Willis’ words ) “proved the business model”.

    Your recollection changes that testimony and puts the thought of making the “big bucks” into Willis’ head much earlier… when he was still just PFD Chief and right after the initial grant Federal grant monies started showing up.

    From Darell Willis’ FIRST ( of two ) ADOSH interviews on August 19, 2015…
    —————————————————————————————–
    1694 A: And so Eric came to work for us a full-time employee and we talked about it
    1695 and we got to the Type 2 IA level, uh, and we were able to prove the business
    1696 model worked. We could make a little money, we weren’t gouging people.
    1697 Under the National contract for, uh – we were charging less than the National
    1698 Type 2 IA crews. We said, “Well, gosh, we got – we got full-time employees,
    1699 we got this, we’ve got equipment. Why don’t we go to the next step?”
    1700
    1701 Q1: Mm-hm.
    1702
    1703 A: And that’s when we decided to t – take it to the Type 1 status. We had the full
    1704 time employees, we – we met everything and so we did a – a year of, uh,
    1705 training as a training crew in 2007. Had three s- different superintendents go
    1706 along with us on, uh…
    1707
    1708 Q1: Who – who were those?
    1709
    1710 A: Jeff Andrew was one. Uh, he’s with Prescott.
    1711
    1712 Q1: Uh-huh.
    1713
    1714 A: Um, I’m trying to think who the other guy was. There was two others, and I
    1715 can’t remember the other two.
    ——————————————————————————————–

    I still find it less than credible that the Prescott Wildland Division Chief can’t even remember the NAMES of 2 of the 3 persons who ‘signed off’ on his Type 2 IA Crew being qualified to be a Type 1 IHC Hotshot Crew.

    One of them was a ‘local’ ( Jeff Andrews ) who, even though he was USFS, he still worked with the Prescott National Forest and was allowed to be one of their three ‘evaluators’.

    We still have no idea who the other two people were who said this crew was eligible for Type 1 IHC status and that the man who had been running this Type 2 crew ( Eric Marsh ) was in any way qualified to ‘grandfather in’ to the new job of Type 1 IHC Superintendent.

    Reply

    • WTKTT,

      It seems to me that the original sign off for IHC status should /would be available either at PFD or at NIFC. Not saying that Willis should not remember (because my guess is he knows exactly how the process worked), but the documentation should be out there. With that, the quals of Eric Marsh should also be available from his personnel file from the time he was hired until the tragic day in June of 2013.

      Reply

      • In addition, I would be very interested to hear/see what the actual process consisted of and what field activities were involved. Did someone with higher qualifications “shadow” the crew prior to the official sign off? Or did somebody know somebody and get the certification based on “paper quals” only?

        Reply

        • WTKTT,

          Okay, I just re-read your post – it sounds like they did have people “shadowing” the crew to prove they were worthy of IHC status. However, my question still remains (in slightly different framing), were those people all local and part of the “boys”? We know one of them was from the local forest.

          Reply

  57. WWTKTT and Marti- check emails…new photos will be coming to you two to do your magic and or not but as we get them…we send them to you…all the ones we sent tonight…owner is Brent Yadon- a quadriplegic disabled veteran man states he was threatened with jail by a person in black jeep with golden emblem; a person in an authority role. Not the only person who said that but wanted to remain anonymous. Also Brent is having lung respiratory problems since the fire—a common thing we hear around here even from the healthiest of folks including ourselves. Enjoy the pictures and we have more coming…the new flyers posted have worked INDEED…YEAH!!!!

    Reply

    • Reply to Joy A. Collura post on June 22, 2015 at 7:11 pm

      >> Joy A. Collura wrote…
      >>
      >> WWTKTT and Marti- check emails…new photos will be coming

      Thank you, Joy.

      >> Joy A. Collura also said…
      >>
      >> owner is Brent Yadon- a quadriplegic disabled veteran man states he
      >> was threatened with jail by a person in black jeep with golden emblem;
      >> a person in an authority role.

      SPGS1 Gary Cordes himself, in his ADOSH interview, spoke about these “Jeep Squads’
      that were pressed into service to run around giving pre-evacuation.notices.

      Actually… Cordes called them “Jeep Posses”, but didn’t know WHO they were.

      Cordes says he was as surprised as anyone to see them since he wasn’t aware of any pre-evacuation order having been issued by IC Roy Hall, or OPS Todd Able or Paul Musser, or even by himself.

      The timeframe when Cordes says he started seeing these “Jeep Squads” was in the 1400 ( 2:00 PM ) range.

      From Gary Cordes’ ADOSH interview…
      ———————————————————————–
      1162 Q2: Okay. Right. Okay. Alright. Uh, okay. Um, and we covered all that
      1163 frequency stuff. Uh, 1400 uh, where were you at, Yabahi County Sheriff’s
      1164 Office…
      1165
      1166 A: I was…
      1167
      1168 Q2: …(unintelligible) pre-evacuation notice?
      1169
      1170 A: Right. As I was comin’ out on the north side of Yarnell, um, from, from
      1171 Shrine, um, I saw some SO volunteers, the, the, their jeep posse, uh,
      1172 contacting people. I asked them what they were doing. They said they were
      1173 pre-evacuating and then I called uh, operations and confirmed that with them,
      1174 ‘cause I had no, no notice of any evacuation occurring and, and um, and it was
      1175 all, it was pre-evac, uh, four hour pre-evacuation notice.
      1176
      1177 Q2: Um, fire at that time was still uh, moving uh, column was going to the north?
      1178
      1179 A: To the north towards um, uh, Peeples Valley.
      1180
      1181 Q2: Peeples Valley?
      1182
      1183 A: Yeah.
      1184
      1185 Q2: So you saw that and the fire was uh, doing, uh moving away from it, did they
      1186 state, did you talk to ‘em at all, I mean, did they state why they were doing a
      1187 pre-evacuation?
      1188
      1189 A: They were just told, they were told to do it. These are – these – this is a jeep
      1190 posse, so they’re not the ones making the decisions, so my guess is uh, YCSO
      1191 uh, somebody up in a higher level decided it was time to evacuate and, and
      1192 that was fine. I just wasn’t trying to push everybody out of town that early
      1193 unless we, you know, ‘cause everything was moving away from town, so um,
      1194 and we had a, we had a um, anything closer than a mile or, or mile, mile and a
      1195 half out was kind of our trigger point to, to evacuate town.
      1196
      1197 Q2: Right. Okay. Um, that was what I was (unintelligible) they’re, they’re doing
      1198 this at two o’clock, you’re like what, what do they know that no one else
      1199 seems to know.
      1200
      1201 A: Yeah, I think it was because the activity was picking up in the afternoon, so
      1202 you know, people start getting a little more excited.
      ———————————————————————–

      Reply

      • Dose that some how tell you Gary was Clueless. Trigger points only a mile from town.
        Predicted thunderstorms and erratic winds on a uncontrolled fire. Sounds like the Sheriffs department was a little ahead of the Fire compared to the Fire overhead.
        Another example that this type 2 team was way out of their element.

        Again they were not even thinking about the Fire Fighters out there either.

        As I said way down I do not think the loaned for the possible blow up that occurred and thought the fire was going to keep moving North .when South and East were wide open fields of brush with Structure that had no protection from the Fire.
        NO DEFENCIABLE SPACE Better to be Safe than Sorry. EVACUATE

        The weather forecast should have triggered a massive exit by Fire Fighters. Yet it was as if no one cared or believed that the winds were going to change. They just kept going with a plan that was doomed that morning.

        WTKTT — I will add here that you have talked a lot about BR doing nothing but sitting around. The Supervisors of this crew decided in the beginning as I would have that the Overhead on this fire were off the reservation and they shifted into protection mode for there crew Keep your heads up stay out of trouble and be ready to move at a moments notice. Their inactivity was intentional not just waiting for an assignment.

        Reply

        • Yes. A certain level of uncertainty as to situational awareness is natural, and certainly none of the lack of cognitive awareness of the weather forecast, the development of actual weather in line with that forecast, and what that meant for firefighters and civilians was intentional. Nor was it imo a critical element behind what happened with GM . But, more than a little examination of how the idea that the fire would keep moving north (without regard to actual forecast and actual weather) got generated and transmitted between people would be very helpful. What’s again so odd is not only was this, all things considered, not an exceptional fire nor a fire that behaved differently than weather and conditions would suggest, but also local law enforcement saw the need for an evacuation well before those on the fire did. And the weather guy saw the expected fire behavior well before they did, too.

          Reply

        • That trigger point Bob mentions of a mile would only gives them 5 minutes to evacuate the town if that fiTre moved as Willis indicated —11 mph. Better not be on the commode of that is all they allow for evacuation time. That fire was a trigger the minute it got into that dense brush and took off — It was at a true trigger an emergency response the minute it started.

          Now I can only think this is after all a money game–allowing an emergency fire to build to extreme proportions so the big money players enter the game—playing off an inexperienced fire fighting team as a Type 1 when they barely would make a Type 2 considering their ages, lack of actual experience and a leader that did could barely qualify as a Hot Shot himself. Neat that your neighbor can pass on his job to you–called a good neighbor policy when you do not have the qualities. I suppose you can wing it in being a Hot Shot until you get someone killed and people look at your credentials. In mining you can’t–you have to be able to pull a round or your butt is out quickly. Maybe Bob or Gary will inform us on whether the Fire Fighter Hot Shot can pull the wool over the eyes of enough people to get inducted into the Hall of Fame status or say become a Type 1 while not even a Type 2. I suppose you would at least have to be familiar with the jargon and rub shoulders in the right places–again something a miner or logger could never get away with.

          Reply

  58. **
    ** STILL NO UPDATES TO ALJ HEARING FILE

    Just thought I would point out that we are coming up on a full MONTH since there have been any updates to the “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” ALJ Hearing File.

    The online page where any/all filings in the case are supposed to appear on timely basis is here…

    https://sites.google.com/site/yarnellhillinformation/home/yarnellhillaljhearingfile

    The original text for this page told the public that the page would be updated with new documents filed in the case no later than the close of business every Friday.

    Since the last ( and THIRD ) cancellation of Brendan McDonough’s scheduled deposition, someone made a concerted effort to REMOVE that text and replace it with something that now just says the page will he updated ‘periodically’.

    There is NO DOUBT that (probably) MANY new documents have been filed since May 28 ( the last time the page updated ) and the third cancellation of McDonough’s under-oath deposition.

    It really appears that on or around that cancellation… and with the granting of another 30 day extension in the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits… someone seems to have told someone “Stop updating that public page like you’ve been doing”.

    Whoever doesn’t want that public page to update can’t get away with that forever.
    It is required by LAW that it be updated in as timely a fashion as possible.

    So we still have no idea what’s been going on in the legal proceedings since the sudden ( and THIRD ) cancellation of Brendan McDonough’s inevitable under-oath deposition.

    Everything is still just ‘back-drafting” at the moment.

    i get the feeling that right on or about the second anniversary… any number of things are going to POP and there will be all kinds of ‘announcements’.

    We shall see.

    Reply

    • And I have to say, regarding that second anniversary……

      …..which you say “any number of things are going to POP”………………………….

      ……………..I am finding it really really really WEIRD that I have not (and I’ve been watching for this) seen ANYTHING announcing ANYTHING happening in Prescott regarding this anniversary.

      Other than the auction of the State Trust Land on the steps of the Yavapai County Court House. That is IT.

      The ONLY thing I have seen is an honoring of it in Yarnell on the 29th.

      By this time last year, there were plans posted on the internet WAY before now. And articles were starting to bubble up.

      Not only is the silence deafening regarding the derailment of Brendan’s deposition, and what is going on regarding the “mediation,” but it’s also deafening regarding this second anniversary.

      It all seems like somebody doesn’t want any of this to even happen.

      And I’m really mystified by that.

      “We Will Never Forget,” indeed.

      Reply

      • Marti-
        last year at the end of May 2014 the hikers were getting calls from reporters and journalists to do a first anniversary thing but we were in Nevada…
        so you are right and heavily the second week in June the calls came in and I know because that is the week I left NV….

        Reply

      • Reply to Marti Reed post on June 20, 2015 at 11:08 pm

        >> Marti said…
        >>
        >> I am finding it really really really WEIRD that I have not
        >> (and I’ve been watching for this) seen ANYTHING announcing
        >> ANYTHING happening in Prescott regarding this anniversary.
        >>
        >> Other than the auction of the State Trust Land on the steps
        >> of the Yavapai County Court House. That is IT.

        They ( City of Prescott ) apparently DO plan on holding a commemoration ceremony just like they did last year… and right there on those same exact Courthouse steps where the land auction is going to be held that very
        morning at 11:00 AM.

        >> Marti also said…
        >>
        >> By this time last year, there were plans posted on the internet
        >> WAY before now. And articles were starting to bubble up.

        That’s true. Articles were ‘popping’ almost all that month leading up to the anniversary… but this year pretty much nothing at all.

        I guess the FIRST anniversary was the ‘big deal’… and now it’s just old news?

        >> Marti also said…
        >>
        >> Not only is the silence deafening regarding the derailment of
        >> Brendan’s deposition, and what is going on regarding the
        >> “mediation,” but it’s also deafening regarding this second anniversary.
        >>
        >> It all seems like somebody doesn’t want any of this to even happen.
        >>
        >> And I’m really mystified by that.
        >>
        >> “We Will Never Forget,” indeed.

        I hear ya.

        But just about 72 hours ago at least the following showed up on the ‘Prescott Granite Mountain Hotshots’ public Facebook page…

        https://www.facebook.com/PrescottGraniteMountainHotshots

        ——————————————————
        On June 30, 2015, the City of Prescott will commemorate the Granite Mountain Hotshots, 19 members of which were tragically lost on June 30, 2013. The public is welcome and encouraged to attend the event on the north steps of the Yavapai County Courthouse. The ceremony will begin with the Posting of Colors by an interagency Honor Guard of firefighters at 4:35 p.m. There will be a moment of silence at 4:42 p.m., the official time of death of the crewmembers, followed by the ringing of the Courthouse bell 19 times. Flags at all city and county facilities will be flown at half-staff. – City of Prescott (Official)
        ———————————————————–

        There is no mention as to whether the families are going to ‘sequester’ themselves from the public and media ( like they did last year ) and have their own ‘private’ memorial ceremony over in the cemetery where those 19 bronze markers are.

        Reply

        • Followup…

          That ‘press release’ from ?? Prescott PR folks ?? says the following…

          “There will be a moment of silence at 4:42 p.m., the official time of death of the crewmembers”

          I’m not sure where they are getting that statement.

          None of the official investigations ever established, for sure and certain, the ‘time of death’ for ANY of the Granite Mountain crewmembers.

          It is sort of ‘accepted’ that the burnover at the deployment site happened somewhere in the 4:42 to 4:44 timerange… but there is also Panebaker Air Study Video/Audio capture that has pilot Kevin in the DC10 VLAT saying he has just heard a transmission from Marsh as late as 4:48 PM.

          So I don’t know what ‘official’ source the Prescott press release is basing its ‘official time of death’ on.

          I don’t even think the autopsy reports ever established any official time of death, either… but there’s only a few people who have ever actually SEEN those autopsy and toxicology reports… so who knows.

          Reply

          • Copy. Thank you.

            Still…………………

            Including what Joy said.

            Compared to a year ago…………crickets.

            Reply

            • Yes… unless the flood gates are going to suddenly open, or something.

              We shall see.

              The SECOND anniversary of something like this always an important one. That’s when you get to see what is likely to become an always-done annual tradition… instead of all the ( sometimes overdone ) stuff you see on a FIRST anniversary.

              I’m just hoping more people who know things will feel it’s finally OK to talk about what they saw, heard or did that weekend in June, 2013.

              I really am hoping for ‘installment 2’ of the story from Cory Moser.

              Last year he told us the 30-40 FFs who spent the night near the deployment site stayed UP all night and then they all made some kind of ‘pact’ to never talk about what they saw, heard or did.

              Like they were all Masons and one of those super-secret Masonry rituals got performed or something.

              Anyway… I’m holding out hope for ‘installment 2’ of the story from Moser and he will at least give a hint WHY they felt the need to make this ‘pact’ amongst themselves to “keep their mouths shut”.

              Reply

          • WantsToKnowTheTruth says

            >> On June 21, 2015 at 3:56 pm, WantsToKnowTheTruth said…
            >>
            >>.
            >> That ‘press release’ from ?? Prescott PR folks ?? says
            >> the following…
            >>
            >> “There will be a moment of silence at 4:42 p.m., the official
            >> time of death of the crewmembers”
            >>
            >> I’m not sure where they are getting that statement.

            Followup…

            In an article reporting on today’s second anniversary memorial service in Prescott, Chuck Tidey told a reporter that the reason the bell is rung at precisely 4:42 is because that is, in fact, the ‘time of death’ listed on the death certificates for all 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots.

            I didn’t know that… but that certainly answers the question about how 4:42 has become to be commonly assumed to be the exact ‘time of death’.

            KTAR
            Article Title: Two years later: Arizona, nation remember
            19 fallen Yarnell hotshots
            Published: Jun 30, 2015 – 12:17 pm
            http://ktar.com/22/1846198/Two-years-later-Arizona-nation-remember-19-fallen-Yarnell-hotshots

            From the article…
            —————————————————
            Yarnell has a remembrance ceremony planned for 4 p.m. At 4:42, they plan to have a moment of silence to honor the hotshots.

            “That’s when the death certificates indicated that they had died,” Chuck Tidey with the Yarnell-Peeples Valley Chamber of Commerce said.
            —————————————————

            Reply

      • The locals are cleaning up the memorial ground across the street from Yarnell Fire Department,. The nice new white hummer is cleaned and polished so Chief Ben Palm looks good there. The Forest Service ought to also donate a water tank to tie on behind with a small pumper so he can put out a small brush fire or lightening strike like we had on Friday of June 28, 2013.. I think the thing has new tires now and with the 4×4 ought to be able to tackle some of these back roads well enough.

        I hear Mr. Palm is running for mayor now–a parallel to Freole in Prescott. I wonder do all you firemen aspire to be in politics–I rather see you guys like Dr. Ted Putnam–true blue fire fighting experience and later helping the younger green horn stay alive by instructing and critiquing systems that are killing fire fighters. I think much I have learned from you fellows that have been there would even be a good education for the common citizen who thinks he ought to live in dangerous areas. Thanks for your knowledge.

        Reply

  59. **
    ** 12 YEARS IN PRISON FOR MISREPRESENTING THE
    ** CAPABILITIES OF A WILDLAND FIRE RESOURCE

    Four days ago… this article appeared at Wildfire Today…

    Wildfire Today
    Former VP of Carson Helicopters sentenced to 12 years in prison
    Published: June 16, 2015 by Bill Gabbert
    http://wildfiretoday.com/2015/06/16/former-vp-of-carson-helicopters-sentenced-to-12-years-in-prison/

    Everyone who has been reading along here is probably familiar with that term ‘Altitude Density’ and how important it is for Helicopters.

    The temperature, humidity, altitude and the resulting “density of the air” is absolutely crucial for helicopters and the amount of ‘lift’ that can be expected and, hence, the amount of WEIGHT that can be safely loaded.

    Yarnell ICT4 Russ Shumate himself was using this all-important ‘Altitude Density’ consideration to determine that he could only safely send 3 firefighters at a time up to the top of the Weaver Ridge in BLM Helicopter N14HX for their insertion on the morning of Saturday, June 29, 2013… and then again on extraction the morning of Sunday, June 30, 2013.

    There’s even software now onboard helicopters that is hooked into hygrometers and other sensing devices that allows pilots to type in estimated cargo weights and, based on a (supposedly) accurate weight of the unloaded resource and the desired cargo weight… the software itself can do the “Air Density” calculations in real time and can come back with “No can do, my friend” warning information.

    If the base weight of the unloaded resource being used in the calculations is off by even a few hundred pounds… that can make the difference between knowing how many firefighters can be safely loaded into the resource.

    So that is what happened with this WFF incident which killed 9 people on the ‘Iron Complex’ fire in California in 2008.

    The owners of the WFF resource ( Carson Helicopters ) were caught ‘falsifying’ the BASE weight of the resource ( their helicopter ) in order to get ( and keep ) a 51 million dollar US Forestry Service contract.

    They were purposely misrepresenting the capabilities of their own resource in order to fulfill their own agenda.

    The defense lawyers in this case argued that, while there was no denying that the base weight of the resource had been falsified and the capabilities of the resource were, hence, being misrepresented… this was just a CONTRIBUTING factor to the fatal accident and not a primary CAUSAL factor. They argued that the pilot(s) could have done things they didn’t do in order to avoid the tragedy.

    The Judge disagreed.

    The Judge concluded that this misrepresentation of the capabilities of the resource was, indeed, a primary CAUSAL factor in the tragedy… and that this ‘gross negligence’ on the part of the parties responsible for that resource deserved some jail time for the resulting ‘wrongful deaths’.

    So I guess you can see where I am going with this… and why I was purposely using the word ‘resource’ ( versus simply saying ‘helicopter’ ) so much up above.

    The Granite Mountain Hotshots were obviously not a ‘Helicopter’… but they WERE a Wildland Fire Fighting Resource subject to the same sort of ‘estimation of capabilities’ and ‘minimum standards’ as any WFF resource is… Engines, Aircraft, Crews, whatever.

    You HAVE to know what a ‘resource’ is fully capable of doing in order to ever even try to SAFELY do certain things with that ‘resource’.

    In essence… the Type 1 IHC WFF resource known as Granite Mountain undertook a “flight” that day from their location in the safe black… and this resource then basically “crashed on approach” to their “landing zone”.

    Whether or not that “flight” was even authorized or was just some huge amount of flagrant freelancing is still the subject of debate and more evidence needs to come to light about that.

    But there is no doubt this “flight” ended BADLY… and the “crash” took place on the floor of that box canyon just short of the “landing zone”.

    If you compare Eric Marsh and Jesse Steed to the pilot and co-pilot for that “flight”… then their involvement in the CRASH that took place has obviously always been a primary consideration.

    They were, for all intents and purposes, the ones “flying that helicopter” that day.

    So am I the only one who might also be seeing a similarity here with regards to the ‘owners’ of this resource possibly “misrepresenting the capabilities of the resource”, and that being a possible CONTRIBUTING and/or CAUSAL factor in the eventual “crash on approach” on June 30, 2013?

    Just a few days ago… Gary Olson presented a ‘summary’ of information that has been coming to him from his own sources.

    There is no reason to believe these ‘sources’ are not reliable.

    On June 12, 2015 at 11:55 pm, Gary Olson said…
    —————————————————————
    * Eric Marsh knew the GMIHC was type 2 IA AT BEST, but if that fact were found out, it wouldn’t be good for the future of the crew and may cause the city council to accelerate their budget cutbacks for the Wildlands Division and the crew.

    * Very few people realize that Eric Marsh was never a hotshot before he became the GMIHC Crew Boss. Eric worked on an engine for the Tonto National Forest and he was just a pick up and fill in for the Globe Hotshots from the Tonto National Forest.

    * Eric Marsh was not qualified to be the GMIHC Superintendent when he was hired for that job. Just because he was in place as the Granite Mountain 7 fuels crew foreman, did not make him qualified to lead a Type 1 crew.

    * Other than that detail to the Globe Hotshots, Eric Marsh’s experience as a hotshot was limited to just filling in here and there as a digger (low ranking crew member). So when people say he was a hotshot for 20 years or whatever, it’s incorrect.
    —————————————————————————–

    Regarding just this first item alone…

    * Eric Marsh knew the GMIHC was type 2 IA AT BEST, but if that fact were found out, it wouldn’t be good for the future of the crew and may cause the city council to accelerate their budget cutbacks for the Wildlands Division and the crew.

    That is really nothing but a CONFIRMATION of what Eric Marsh himself had basically said in his OWN job performance review in his personnel file.

    On May 3, 2013… just 57 days before the “fatal crash” on June 30, 2013, Eric Marsh said this ( in WRITING )…

    ————————————————————————————-
    Document in SAIT FOIA/FOIL package: ASF000042-INV to ASF000384-INV.pdf
    Page 252 ( of 343 pages )
    City of Prescott: EMPLOYEE SELF APPRAISAL – ERIC MARSH
    Date: May 3, 2013

    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.

    Signed: Eric Marsh
    ————————————————————————————-

    Once more for good measure…

    Eric Marsh HIMSELF said ( in WRITING )…

    “It is challenging to run a nationally recognized program with minimum standards and requirements that I am UNABLE TO MEET”.

    So was the organization known as “The Granite Mountain Hotshots”, and the people that OWNED that ‘Wildfire Resource’ doing pretty much the same thing that the owners of “Carson WFF Helicopters” were doing?

    Were they ‘misrepresenting the capabilities of a WFF contract resource” and putting that resource out for hire even though they KNEW certain ‘minimum standards’ were NOT being met?

    This has nothing to do with the fact that two sets of investigators ( SAIT and ADOSH ) took a look at the same paperwork that was given to both of them by the same source ( the Prescott Human Resources Department ) and determined that,based on just this paperwork alone, all the members of this Crew were (supposedly) meeting the MINIMUM requirements.

    What we hear from Eric Marsh himself ( and, additionally, now, Gary Olson’s sources ) is that regardless of the paperwork that was sitting in the Prescott City filing cabinets… it was KNOWN that the resource did NOT meet certain ‘minimum requirements’ and WAS being misrepresented’ to be something it was NOT.

    As per Gary Olson’s (additional) sources… GM Superintendent Eric Marsh ( and most likely his boss, Prescott Wildland Division Chief Darrell Willis ) KNEW they were ‘misrepresenting the capabilities of their resource’ and pawning off a ‘Type 2 IA’ resource as a ‘Type 1 IHC’ resource.

    Was this ‘misrepresented’ resource then asked to perform a “takeoff and landing” on June 30, 2013 under hazardous conditions which was actually beyond their capabilities given the distance and allowed time… and which resulted in a “crash on approach” because of this misrepresentation of their capabilities combined with the negligence of the ‘pilots’ themselves?

    There were even men on that crew for whom this was only their second or third fire. To ask them to go on that “flight” and also ask them to participate in one of the most time-critical and difficult descents you could ever ask a crew to do and NOT remember that “a crew is only as fast as its slowest member” rule… is just more total under-estimation of capabilities to the point of gross negligence.

    If the Prescott Wildland Division had been (knowingly) ‘misrepresenting the capabilties’ of their resource that they were contracting out for high-dollar WFF fire work… then in what way is that any different from what Carson Helicopters was doing?

    Thoughts?

    Reply

    • They should have been dropped to a type 2 crew and the contract and pay down graded as well. until they could meet the type 1 criteria. The city was getting paid for a type 1 crew and fielding a type 2 that would be misrepresentation.
      The crew was signed off as a type 1 when it did not meet that criteria—-Mr. Willis should have had some explaining to do.

      Reply

      • In 2001 I presented at a Training Officers Conference on the subject of Municipal Fire Districts/Departments building a Hand Crew Program. Our program had been up and running for about three years, so of course that made me an expert on the topic (obviously tongue n check). One person in attendance ( I think there were five total) was a representative from PFD. I don’t know for certain if it was Willis, but I am reasonably sure it was. At the end of the presentation time was allowed for questions, and a number were asked – all from the PFD representative. Billing / reimbursement questions for fire assignments, grant funding questions, etc. But what I found most interesting were the questions regarding IHC certification – it seemed way to premature for a program just getting started, yet it seemed very obvious that was going to happen for PFD. Not that this matters at this point, it just seems to validate the importance placed on the IHC status, whether qualified or not.

        If you really look at the time from inception of the fuels crew to the “certified” IHC it was a very aggressive timeline – one that most start up crews could/would not be able to qualify and meet the standards.

        Now, not that I think the system will change but this does bring up a weak link ( I think there are some ongoing attempts to fix this). If a municipal type organization was to have a crew certified as IHC, they apply through the state agency they work with (in this case ADF), become sponsored by them and then the paper work and qualifications are reviewed. Maybe, depending on region/area there maybe some actual line construction scenarios, but in 2007ish I am not sure that even happened.

        So, the type one/IHC carrot was certainly a high priority to acquire and maintain for the PFD (Willis) and the system was/is flawed in the certification and currency process. HOWEVER, regardless of type 1 or type 2 IA, basic safety rules were violated and broken, and that is unacceptable regardless of crew type!

        Reply

        • Reply to Retired with 38 post on June 20, 2015 at 9:02 pm

          >> Retired with 38 said…
          >>
          >> One person in attendance ( I think there were five total) was a
          >> representative from PFD. I don’t know for certain if it was Willis,
          >> but I am reasonably sure it was.

          Thank you, Retired with 38.

          That’s a very relevant piece of information.

          If the year was 2001… it was more likely Duane Steinbrink than Darrell Willis?

          The FIRST “Prescott Wildland Division Chief” who actually oversaw the creation of the Fuels crew was Duane Steinbrink.

          Darrell Willis came out of retirement to be the SECOND Prescott Wildland Division Chief when Duane Steinbrink retired.

          Eric Marsh had already been running the crew by the time Steinbrink retired and if you read Marsh’s personnel file closely… there is evidence that Marsh himself thought he might have been in-line to replace Steinbrink as ‘Prescott Wildland Division Chief’.

          But it was not to be.

          Marsh got ‘passed over’ and The City of Prescott asked Darrell Willis to come out of retirement instead and succeed Steinbrink… even though Darrell Willis was ‘structural’ and had little to no actual Wildland Firefighting experience.

          There’s never been any evidence that this cause any real friction between Marsh and Willis or otherwise damaged their working relationship… and Willis made no secret of the fact that he WAS ‘mentoring’ Marsh to replace him when HE would eventually retire ( for the SECOND time ) from the Prescott Fire Department.

          Duane Steinbrink was actually a neighbor of Eric and Amanda Marsh’s and the night of the tragedy he was the one who actually drove Amanda Marsh into town for that meeting at the high school for family members.

          He’s also the one who ( According to Amanda Marsh ) was working his cellphone on the drive in and gathering intel and he supposedly kept leaning over from the front seat and just saying “It’s not good. It’s not good”.

          With regards to WHO it really was from PFD that might have been asking all those questions… take a look at the following PHOTO which accompanies this Chino Valley Review news article.

          It’s a photo that shows both Duane Steinbrink and Darrell Willis standing TOGETHER at a press conference that featured Amanda Marsh…

          The Chino Valley Review
          Amanda Marsh, wife of fallen Granite Mountain Hotshot crew
          superintendent, speaks about her husband
          Published: 7/4/2013 3:48:00 PM by Heidi Dahms-Foster
          http://cvrnews.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubsectionID=1&ArticleID=57322

          In the large photograph at the top of the article… Darrell Willis is to the LEFT of Amanda Marsh and Duane Steinbrink is to her RIGHT.

          Do you recognize either one of them as the one who was asking all the questions?

          Wouldn’t surprise me if you can’t differntiate which one it might have been because in all honesty, these two men have remarkably similar faces.

          Reply

          • Can’t tell from the photo, it was a while ago. But I do remember the feeling I had when the questions were asked about becoming a Type 1 crew. And the weird feeling I had was very similar to the weird feeling I had when I saw the interview with Willis after the tragic event – God had a different plan, blah,blah,blah, just didn’t sit right. Too much emphasis on being or becoming a “Shot Crew’ and not enough on doing the right things, the right way and for the right reasons.

            Reply

                • A quick BIO on Willis from the following article…

                  http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/yarnell-hill-fire-prescotts-wildlands-fire-commander-responds-to-new-times-cover-story-on-granite-mountain-hotshots-6634370

                  ——————————————–
                  Willis started at the Prescott Fire Department — which, like all municipal fire departments, focuses on structure protection — in 1985 and retired as fire chief in 2007. He eventually was rehired in 2007 as Emergency Services director and became Wildland Division chief in 2010. In his letter, he cites his hotshots experience as an 18-day deployment in 2011 with the Granite Mountain crew and three different assignments in 2010. He says he’s certified as a “Firefighter Type 1” and “Operations Section Chief Type II.” In 2005, Willis was inducted into the Arizona Fire Service Hall of Fame.
                  ——————————————–

                  So Willis didn’t really ‘come out of retirement’ when he succeeded Duane Steinbrink as Prescott’s Wildland Division Chief. Willis had already gone through the ‘revolving door’ in 2007 and in the same year he retired as Prescott’s fire chief ( with full pension ) he came right back in the door on salary as Prescott’s Emergency Services Director to the tune of about 100k plus.

                  He did that for 3 years and then just transferred back to the Prescott Fire Department payroll when Steinbrink retired. Willis took a ‘pay cut’ to do that and dropped back to only earning about 90k a year for the ‘Wildland Division Chief’ job.

                  Willis was “double dipping” from the moment he retired as Fire Chief in 2007 until his recent SECOND retirement from the Prescott Fire Department.

                  Reply

                  • WTKTT,

                    Thinking back to 2001, I am pretty sure that PFD representative introduced himself as the Chief of PFD – so that would have been Willis. But again what really struck me was the hell bent commitment to gain type 1 status – they hadn’t even completed their first season as a fuels crew and he was already talking IHC. Just seems odd to me.

                    Reply

                    • Thanks for this.

                      I had no idea that that early, they were already thinking about pushing this to the level of establishing an IHC.

                      And I agree that is strange. And I agree that is also relevant.

                    • Reply to ‘Retired with 38’ post on June 21, 2015 at 8:19 pm

                      >> ‘Retired with 38’ said…
                      >>
                      >> WTKTT,
                      >>
                      >> Thinking back to 2001, I am pretty sure that PFD representative introduced himself
                      >> as the Chief of PFD – so that would have been Willis. But again what really struck
                      >> me was the hell bent commitment to gain type 1 status – they hadn’t even
                      >> completed their first season as a fuels crew and he was already talking IHC. Just
                      >> seems odd to me.

                      2001 is just after the City of Prescott got tied into those new ‘National Fire Plan’ (Federal) grants and had been designated as a ‘Beta’ site for the new national level FIREWISE program.

                      That where the money to create the Fuels Crew came from in the first place… but Willis knew they wouldn’t be able to depend on that kind of grant stream forever.

                      But the way Darrell Willis himself tells it… it was ONLY after they had successfully transformed the Fuels Crew into a Type 2 IA crew… and proved they could make money with it… that they decided to go for the “big bucks” and the ability to charge the crew out at the Type 1 IHC Hotshot paygrade.

                      So according to Willis’ testimony to ADOSH… no one was thinking about the Type 1 IHC status until AFTER they had ( in Willis’ words ) “proved the business model”.

                      Your recollection changes that testimony and puts the thought of making the “big bucks” into Willis’ head much earlier… when he was still just PFD Chief and right after the initial grant Federal grant monies started showing up.

                      From Darell Willis’ FIRST ( of two ) ADOSH interviews on August 19, 2015…
                      —————————————————————————————–
                      1694 A: And so Eric came to work for us a full-time employee and we talked about it
                      1695 and we got to the Type 2 IA level, uh, and we were able to prove the business
                      1696 model worked. We could make a little money, we weren’t gouging people.
                      1697 Under the National contract for, uh – we were charging less than the National
                      1698 Type 2 IA crews. We said, “Well, gosh, we got – we got full-time employees,
                      1699 we got this, we’ve got equipment. Why don’t we go to the next step?”
                      1700
                      1701 Q1: Mm-hm.
                      1702
                      1703 A: And that’s when we decided to t – take it to the Type 1 status. We had the full
                      1704 time employees, we – we met everything and so we did a – a year of, uh,
                      1705 training as a training crew in 2007. Had three s- different superintendents go
                      1706 along with us on, uh…
                      1707
                      1708 Q1: Who – who were those?
                      1709
                      1710 A: Jeff Andrew was one. Uh, he’s with Prescott.
                      1711
                      1712 Q1: Uh-huh.
                      1713
                      1714 A: Um, I’m trying to think who the other guy was. There was two others, and I
                      1715 can’t remember the other two.
                      ——————————————————————————————–

                      I still find it less than credible that the Prescott Wildland Division Chief can’t even remember the NAMES of 2 of the 3 persons who ‘signed off’ on his Type 2 IA Crew being qualified to be a Type 1 IHC Hotshot Crew.

                      One of them was a ‘local’ ( Jeff Andrews ) who, even though he was USFS, he still worked with the Prescott National Forest and was allowed to be one of their three ‘evaluators’.

                      We still have no idea who the other two people were who said this crew was eligible for Type 1 IHC status and that the man who had been running this Type 2 crew ( Eric Marsh ) was in any way qualified to ‘grandfather in’ to the new job of Type 1 IHC Superintendent.

    • So I have pretty much spent the day looking through Joy’s Second Album all day, and delighting and laughing and crying through it all. She really is a great photographer and a great, in her own way, writer.

      And at a certain point, while looking at her photos of her road trip with Sonny, that eventually wound up way out in the never never never lands of Nevada, while ALWAYS carrying with them every mlle of the way, their devotion to the Granite Mountain Hotshots, my local PBS radio station, KUNM, via one of my favorite “shows,” played something that was, when I was a young Woodstock Generationer, one of my absolutely gut-wrenchingly favorite anti-Viet Nam War songs, “Sky Pilot” by the Animals.

      It was like I was taken back into those powerful moments when I would listen to it. And I can’t even describe in words how that impacted me. And when I heard it tonight, with my mind on all of this, I just broke down, because it totally expressed what I have been feeling about all of THIS.

      (My apologies is I’m a bit wobbly, KUNM’s just KILLING/ROCKING it tonight for me).

      And, so then, as I was listening to that, I looked back here to see what you wrote, WTKTT. And yes. And etc. And up. And down. And systemic. And WRONG. And deadly.

      And, even in the context of what you are saying here, the thing that has been GUTTING me for the past two days is that, not only is what you are saying is true………………

      ………..but we have that crew on an extremely dangerous (although nobody, seemingly, bothered to consider it that, until it was too late) wildfire in which an Operations Supervisor, essentially just one step down in the Chain of Command from the Incident Commander (who was, essentially clueless as to what was going on on this fire), participated in a “plan” that included them descending from a Safe Zone through an explosive chimney in a last ditch hail mary attempt to save Yarnell, WAY past when all the fire-fighters should have been ORDERED off that fire and into safe zones.

      I just can’t figure out who was, actually the “Sky Pilot” in all of this. Maybe that’s because there isn’t just one “Sky Pilot” Maybe the “Sky Pilot” is a whole SYSTEM.
      ——————————–

      Sky pilot… Sky Pilot
      How high can you fly
      You’ll never, never, never reach the sky
      You’re soldiers of God you must understand

      The fate of your country is in your young hands
      May God give you strength
      Do your job real well
      If it all was worth it

      Only time it will tell
      In the morning they return
      With tears in their eyes
      The stench of death drifts up to the skies

      A young soldier so ill looks at the sky pilot
      Remembers the words
      “Thou shalt not kill”
      Sky pilot…..sky pilot

      How high can you fly
      You never, never, never reach the sky.”

      ERIC BURDON & THE ANIMALS- “SKY PILOT” (LONG VERSION)

      https://youtu.be/69zvFnVa03g

      That’s just exactly where I am at, after all this time and effort, right now.

      Reply

      • I’m not sure I can even deal with particulars any more.

        Because it appears to me to be so totally SYSTEMIC.

        Reply

      • Please please please listen to this and tell me if it doesn’t………………………

        …………….relate?

        Reply

      • marti said:
        And at a certain point, while looking at her photos of her road trip with Sonny, that eventually wound up way out in the never never never lands of Nevada, while ALWAYS carrying with them every mlle of the way, their devotion to the Granite Mountain Hotshots,

        my reply: Yes indeed to all affected by the fire…and wasn’t it strange as you clicked on each photo on the right where the one night we had the one person talk about the lonely man Brenden who lived 19 miles away from Granite Mountain…that was near Jimmy Stewart’s old place, northern NV

        Reply

      • Marti Reed says
        JUNE 20, 2015 AT 9:40 PM

        So I have pretty much spent the day looking through Joy’s Second Album all day, and delighting and laughing and crying through it all. She really is a great photographer and a great, in her own way, writer.

        thank you for the compliments…the photos are just byproducts on my journeys…not a photo gal…had we hiked to the Weavers minus the camera—I always wonder what would be different to 6-30-13 when the SAIR came out

        Reply

      • And, in a number of other ways, I’m NOT agreeing with your analogy, but that’s going to take a good night’s sleep and then some wake-up coffee tomorrow morning to completely unpack.

        Reply

      • Actually, the more I’m contemplating this analogy, this more it’s falling apart all around me.

        It’s not the same thing.

        Reply

        • And a bad analogy fails to do justice to either party to the analogy. And, I think, both parties you are using to create this analogy deserve justice being done to them.

          Specifically, in the Carson situation, there were three controlling entities: the owner of the helicopter, the helicopter, and the pilot (the entity which you are roughly equating to Marsh and Steed as the “pilots” of the Granite Mountain Hotshots).

          Which means you’re equating the Granite Mountain Hotshots to the Helicopter.

          Which I’m having some problems with because that doesn’t take into account the fact that there were passengers on that helicopter who weren’t a functioning part of that helicopter. Who died. But whatever.

          The pilot of the Carson Helicopter had absolutely NO CLUE that the helicopter was not capable of lifting the load carried by the helicopter, because of the fraudulent claims of the owner of the helicopter.

          So, for your analogy to work, Marsh and Steed (the pilots) would have to have NOT KNOWN the crew (because of fraudulent claims by somebody ELSE who “owned” that crew) was capable of doing what they were trying to make it do.

          AND that that thing they were trying to make that crew do was, otherwise, a perfectly normal thing they should have had reasonable expectations for it to do, except for the fact that somebody else (who, otherwise “owned” that crew) had, fraudulently told them it could do. .

          See where it falls apart?

          And, in addition to that, the problem is that the thing that the pilots (Marsh and Steed) were trying to make the helicopter/crew do was, all things considered, most likely NOT a “perfectly normal thing they should have had reasonable expectations for it to do.”

          And, remember, this “thing” they were expecting it to do was agreed upon by a pretty high level member of the Incident Management Team.

          Whether it was a duly constituted Type 1 crew, or “really” a Type 2 crew “in camouflage.” the expectations that the ‘pilots” and their Overhead had about that helicopter/crew were, all things considered, NOT reasonable and normal and, thus not worthy of that expectation on their parts.

          That’s a REALLY different, in my humble opinion, situation from what happened regarding the Carson Helicopter crash.

          And so, In my humble opinion, in order to do justice to either one of these truly serious incidents, I think we need to not try to force them into an inappropriate analogy with each other.

          Reply

          • Reply to Marti Reed post on June 21, 2015 at 12:28 am

            >> Marti said…
            >>
            >> Which means you’re equating the Granite Mountain
            >> Hotshots to the Helicopter.
            >>
            >> Which I’m having some problems with because that
            >> doesn’t take into account the fact that there were
            >> passengers on that helicopter who weren’t a functioning
            >> part of that helicopter. Who died. But whatever.

            Well… I knew I was asking for ‘trouble’ the moment I decided to even TRY and equate a Type 1 IHC handline crew resource to a Helicopter resource… and say that both had “owners” and “pilots’ and whatnot…

            I agree it’s a bit of stretch of an analogy… but in all fairness… I DO think there were men on that crew who *could* be compared to simple ‘passengers aboard that resource’. I am thinking mostly of the ‘greenhorns’ like Grant McKee and the other men for whom this was only the second or third time they’d ever been on a real fire assignment.

            For all intents and purposes… a lot of the men on that ‘crew’ were, literally, “just along for the ride” when it came to crucial decisions about WHERE they were to travel… and WHEN… and HOW.

            These men WERE relying on ( forgive me again ) “the pilot and the copilot” to know the capabilities of the entire resource and the realities involved in moving safely from one place to another.

            >> Marti also said…
            >>
            >> The pilot of the Carson Helicopter had absolutely
            >> NO CLUE that the helicopter was not capable of
            >> lifting the load carried by the helicopter, because
            >> of the fraudulent claims of the owner of the helicopter.

            Well… I believe the defense attorneys in the case were trying
            to argue something different… but I haven’t read the transcripts.

            I believe the defense attorneys were trying to establish that there WERE some ‘doubts’… and actions the pilots could have taken to avoid what happened… but they simply didn’t bother to take the time to do those things. Something about a ‘hover check’ which COULD have been done… but wasn’t… or something like that.

            >> Marti also said…
            >>
            >> So, for your analogy to work, Marsh and Steed (the pilots)
            >> would have to have NOT KNOWN the crew (because of
            >> fraudulent claims by somebody ELSE who “owned” that
            >> crew) was capable of doing what they were trying to
            >> make it do.

            Yes… the analogy falls apart there… unless you consider that ( perhaps ) they DID know the crew was not up to a certain task… or should not reasonably be asked to do something that takes a high level of skill… but they asked them to do it anyway.

            So… in a sense… I’m describing a situation that might have been even WORSE than the Carson case. Not only did the ‘owners’ know the capabilities of the resource were being misrepresented… the PILOTS did too… yet they asked they asked the resource to perform beyond its capabilities, anyway.

            If you take just what Eric Marsh himself said ( in writing )… then that actually *might* have been the case.

            >> Marti also said…
            >>
            >> AND that that thing they were trying to make that crew
            >> do was, otherwise, a perfectly normal thing they should
            >> have had reasonable expectations for it to do, except
            >> for the fact that somebody else (who, otherwise “owned”
            >> that crew) had, fraudulently told them it could do.

            See above. Yes. The analogy falters there since there is no TEST for how fast a line of 18 Hotshots are SUPPOSED to be able to traverse a wickedly steep, boulder strewn grade descent covered with trap and maze-like manazanita and catclaw… within less than a mile from a dynamic, active wind-driven fireline.

            So there’s no way anyone who ‘owned’ the resource could have been signing a manifest saying ‘Oh yeah… they should be able to do that, no problem”.

            This part of the equation/analigy is akin to the pilots and copilots simply having to make a ‘judgement call’ themselves about what their ‘aircraft’ should or should not be able to do… given time, terran, and level of difficulty factors.

            Perhaps the question to ask of FFs here would simply be…

            Given what we know now about the difficulty of that “bushwhack” and that “descent”… would ANY fireline manager expect a simple Type 2 IA crew to pull that off without hurting themselves?

            The impression I get from Russ Shumate’s own Unit Logs and testimony to ADOSH is that the answer to that is “NO WAY”.

            So if the “pilot” of this resource that day ( Eric Marsh ) is now assumed to have known he really only had a Type 2 IA crwe… was he justified in ever asking it to perform a task that other FFs would easily say only a bona-fide Type 1 Hotshot crew had a chance to pull off given the time, distance, and extremely difficult conditions?

            >> Marti also said…
            >>
            >> See where it falls apart?

            Yes. I really do… and I knew it was a ‘stretch’ of an analogy… but read above. I’m not sure it’s as far off in ‘left field’ as you are making it out to be. Off home plate, fer sure, but maybe still in the ‘infield’ somewhere.

            >> Marti also said…
            >>
            >> And so, In my humble opinion, in order to do justice to either
            >> one of these truly serious incidents, I think we need to not try
            >> to force them into an inappropriate analogy with each other.

            Agree.

            Bottom line…

            There is a definite non-hypothetical event here.

            A man was just sentenced to 12 years in PRISON for misrepresenting the capabilities of a Wildland Firefighting Resource that he was ‘loaning out’ to fight fires.

            That ‘misrepresented resource’ was involved in an incident that resulted in 9 deaths.

            The Judge decided that the ‘misrepresentation’ of the realities and the capabilities of that resource was NOT just a simple CONTRIBUTING factor in the deaths… it was, in fact, a primary CAUSAL factor.

            There is now all the evidence in the world that the ‘owners’ and the ‘managers’ of a Wildland Firefighting Resource known as The Granite Mountain Hotshots were doing, essentially, the same kind of “misrepresentation”

            And this resource sustained massive losses working a fire.

            Whether the ‘misrepresentation’ in THIS case was, in any way, either a CONTRIBUTING or a CAUSAL factor to the tragedy would be up to many legal experts ( and a Judge or Jury ) to decide…

            …but the SIMILARITY is there.

            The bottom-line ANALOGY is that the capabilities and realities of a Wildland Firefighting Resource were being ‘misrepresented’… and people involved with that ‘misrepresented’ resource DIED.

            Reply

            • Thanks for picking your way through this with me, WTKTT.

              TBH, during the during of this conversation, it has gone rapidly from being (unexpectedly) one of the coldest and wettest Mays in our history to being (unexpectedly) a really HOT June week here in Albuquerque, and, without a functional air conditioner ( a LONG story), I’m doing well just to keep my brain functioning.

              You wrote:

              “For all intents and purposes… a lot of the men on that ‘crew’ were, literally, “just along for the ride” when it came to crucial decisions about WHERE they were to travel… and WHEN… and HOW.

              These men WERE relying on ( forgive me again ) “the pilot and the copilot” to know the capabilities of the entire resource and the realities involved in moving safely from one place to another.”

              Yes. I definitely thought about that and was including that in my “equation.” And I agree.

              You wrote:

              “I believe the defense attorneys were trying to establish that there WERE some ‘doubts’… and actions the pilots could have taken to avoid what happened… but they simply didn’t bother to take the time to do those things. Something about a ‘hover check’ which COULD have been done… but wasn’t… or something like that.”

              From what I have read, THAT is EXACTLY the thing that was SHOT DOWN in this case. I don’t have the Wildfire Today pages open right now (because right now I have 50 bazillion DailyKos/BlackKos pages regarding the South Carolina killings open, which is what I’ve been following this weekend), so I can’t link to them.

              But THAT was, in my understanding, one of the big issues in this case, and THAT, it was decided, would have been impossible for the pilot to do, at that extremely critical and extremely difficult time, given the fact that the stats fraudulently attached to that helicopter were false.

              THAT was, I think, the whole FULCRUM of this case.

              And THAT was where I was finding your analogy falling apart. And, thus, not being a fair representation of EITHER tragedy.

              But it continued to bother me, because I do agree that, maybe some kind of looser version of this analogy might be useful to consider.

              You said:

              “So if the “pilot” of this resource that day ( Eric Marsh ) is now assumed to have known he really only had a Type 2 IA crwe… was he justified in ever asking it to perform a task that other FFs would easily say only a bona-fide Type 1 Hotshot crew had a chance to pull off given the time, distance, and extremely difficult conditions?”

              I don’t think the fact that this crew was “actually only” a Type 2 crew disguised as a Type 1 crew (possibly somewhat “fraudulently” all things considered) made all that much of a difference in the setup/outcome of this.

              I doubt that even a “true” Type 1 crew could have succeeded in successfully accomplishing this “assignment” any more than this crew could.

              So that means, imho, that the problem here, in this (possible useful for discovery) analogy is still that the assignment was beyond the ability of the crew, whether it was a Type 1 crew or a Type 2 crew.

              I seriously don’t believe even a Type 1 crew could have pulled this assignment off (ie, just, for starters, gotten safely to the Boulder Spring Ranch in that time fram), all things considered.

              There just wasn’t enough friggin time.

              So, to continue playing the analogy game, this would be more like the helicopter pilot NOT KNOWING whether the helicopter was, seriously, able to safely lift off and fly away from that spot in those conditions (which is kinda sorta what the owners of the helicopter tried to assert, but failed), but doing it anyway, without doing what they should have known how to do to test it.

              This is not what happened regarding that helicopter crash.

              And, so, this is just one part of where this gets really confused and muddy for me, trying to apply this analogy where it doesn’t easily apply

              I guess where I’m coming out after trying to put these two things together, is that whether or not GM IHC was a true Type 1 crew or a “somewhat wink wink nod nod” Type 2 crew “passing” as a Type 1 crew (what you are seeing as the “fraudulent” part) wasn’t really what made the difference here .

              To me, the fact that an Operations Supervisor (who, given the fact that the Incident Commander was, all things considered, three sheets to the wind on this fire, was in, essentially, Position 1 on this fire) was involved in a plan, along with a Structure Protection Group Supervisor and a Division Supervisor. to (analogy-wise) fly that helicopter, filled with those innocent crew members, out of that position when (whether or not the helicopter’s actual stats were known or not) the CONDITIONS on that helicopter spot were becoming radically increasingly totally unfavorable to that flight, is, to me, where the BASIC PROBLEM lies.

              I guess what I’m saying is that, regardless of the “typing” of the crew (whether stretching things or not), the “FLIGHT PLAN” was the fatal problem here, not the “typing” of the crew.

              Does what I am saying make sense to you?

              Reply

              • I wrote:

                “I seriously don’t believe even a Type 1 crew could have pulled this assignment off (ie, just, for starters, gotten safely to the Boulder Spring Ranch in that time fram), all things considered.

                There just wasn’t enough friggin time.”

                Another further thought that I have had is that, possibly IF this had been a really beefy Type 1 crew, it MIGHT have included enough more seasoned wildland fire-fighters who MIGHT have had enough experience under their belts to have felt that hair rising on the backs of their necks when they looked down at that bowl full of explosive fuel in those fire conditions and had therefore enough wisdom and courage to have said, “NO WAY JOSE!!!!”

                That’s really all the difference I am seeing, in my mind, at this point.

                Reply

    • Excellent parallel and who convinced the deceased pilots to take that risk and who sanctioned such inexperienced pilots to command the lives of those young fire fighters? Will this information surface so future fighter lives will be saved?

      Reply

  60. **
    ** LAT/LONG FOR DOZER STAGING AREA

    ** On June 19, 2015 at 11:06 am, WTKTT said…

    And here is a direct jumplink to the best view of that ‘staging area’ there at the south end of the Sesame area… ADOSH photo P9180003.JPG…

    https://www.dropbox.com/sh/20inrene9tcx74a/AAD3qBIoirUtUPykDaoj_5KMa/ADOSH%20Yarnell%20Hill%20Investigation/Photos%20and%20Video/ADOSH%20Hiking%20Yarnell%20Hill%209%2018%2013?dl=0&preview=P9180003.JPG

    There is a large building there in the middle of the clearing that obviously survived the burnover.

    ** On June 19, 2015 at 10:36 pm, Marti Reed replied…

    WTKTT~
    Can you give me a quick long/lat for that so I can look at it via Google Earth?
    I’m experiencing some difficulty here and apparently I didn’t geotag Ball’s photo there.
    Thx in advance.

    ** On June 20, 2015 at 10:07 am, WTKTT replied…

    For ADOSH photo P9180003.JPG, which was taken by ADOSH during
    their September 18, 2013 hike accompanied by Joy and Sonny…

    Camera was right here, just EAST of the white fence and looking WEST…
    34.221954, -112.762812

    The CENTER of that large (brown) building seen in center of the clearing is here…
    34.221651, -112.763384

    Notice in the other ADOSH photos taken from same location ( P9180001 and P9180002 ), the fire actually burned the white fence… but ONLY the part that is about 12 to 15 feet to the right of the gate (north) from the camera’s perspective.

    It indicates the fire came AROUND that clearing… and not THROUGH it.

    Reply

      • Reply to Joy A. Collura post on June 20, 2015 at 11:27 am

        >> Joy A. Collura said…
        >>
        >> I forget if it was think link or the other that has the OSHA hike
        >> to compliment OSHA’s dropbox…

        That remains an extraordinary collection of photos and videos, Joy.

        Thanks for posting that link.

        I’d also forgotten about this amazing video you shot right at the exact place where Granite Mountain was about to arrive and where they would be working.

        The TITLE of this video could be…. “Exactly what the situation was just before Granite Mountain crew arrived and exactly where they would be working”.

        It’s also an important video in that it shows clearly how much retardant was on the edge of that area where GM would be working BEFORE they even got there… which is then easily compared to later photos showing where Air Attack Rory Collins had then been dumping retardant on their indirect burnouts… AGAINST Eric Marsh’s wishes.

        That video is here…

        https://plus.google.com/photos/112068160404980104272/albums/5911726150683632913/5911728007841829938?authkey=CMSBuJL2pZXeOg&pid=5911728007841829938&oid=112068160404980104272

        The video starts basically looking straight at the area that would become known
        later as the “last resting spot” and the place where Christopher MacKenzie
        would shoot his 3:50 to 3:55 PM photos and videos.

        The video then pans to the RIGHT ( to the EAST ) and we see the line of
        ‘heat’ and spot fires that Granite Mountain would be working on when
        they arrived shortly after this video.

        The video ENDS looking back to the SOUTHEAST and towards Yarnell
        and Glen Ilah as Joy says “see”, showing how far from town the ‘anchor’ was.

        NOTE; The following is what Joy was saying as she was shooting the video.

        ———————————————————–
        I just wanted to take a video because you can hear the poppin’
        noise like there’s gunshots goin’ off. In the distance you’ll see
        some firemen… forestry men… and about thirty of ’em are
        comin’ up the hill now. It’s pretty far from town… I mean…
        three or four miles… see.
        ————————————————————

        Reply

        • And in that same collection… here is that now famous photo of Joy’s that DOES show two ‘mystery FFs’ standing up on the ridge and overlooking the fire BEFORE the Granite Mountain crew ever arrived up there.

          They BOTH appear to have BLACK helmets.

          There is no sign of a RED Helmet as Marsh was wearing.

          It’s pretty much a given that these two ‘mystery FFs’ had to be the last two Lewis DOC crew members that needed to be flown off the fire after spending the night… but even those men had mostly BLUE helmets, not black… and the other conundrum is that these men that Joy photographed are nowhere near the HELISPOT where the ‘extractions’ were taking place.

          Far from it.

          In the photo below…the ‘mystery FFs’ are seen clearly standing on the ridge on the very left side of the photo… and that location is pretty much right near the “last resting place” and where Christoper MacKenzie would eventually shoot his two 9 second videos circa 3:55 pm.

          That’s almost a 1/2 mile from the HELISPOT where DPS chopper N14HX was doing the FF extractions that morning.

          https://plus.google.com/photos/112068160404980104272/albums/5911726150683632913/5911733013746273762?authkey=CMSBuJL2pZXeOg&pid=5911733013746273762&oid=112068160404980104272

          Reply

          • The KEY the locating exactly where those two ‘mystery FFs’ were standing on the left side of the photo above comes on the RIGHT side of the same photo.

            Down there in the bottom right corner of this photo is that now-famous NOTHCED ROCK which appears in countless other photos and videos… including Christopher MacKenzie’s own photos and videos.

            That NOTCHED ROCK was just down the slope from what would become known as the “last resting spot” and that place where we see the men assembling and resting in MacKenzie’s photos and videos.

            Reply

            • A possible of who they were—
              Helitack crew they could have had a sling load waiting to be picked
              up of equipment from the night shift not at the Heli Spot. That would be the only thing I could think why they would be there rather than the Helispot..

              Reply

              • That’s a great guess… and probably right.

                Joy herself does have a few photos that came AFTER that one of the yellow/white BLM chopper N14HX hovering over the area with a ‘drop line’ dangling… but whatever was taking place was obscured by a ridgeline.

                A lot of the bladder bags and supplies that had been delivered the night before ended up somehow getting ‘burned up’ in the fire the night before… and some of that crap was just left up there.

                Those would end up being the unrecovered ‘bladder bags’ that would become the focus of attention later that afternoon when Frisby, Brown, Clawson, Hulburd and Yowell were out there looking for Granite Mountain and DPS Ranger 58 Chopper spotted these ‘bladder bags’ there still on the ground.

                But as Joy’s other photos show… N14HX was picking up something with a drop line that Sunday morning… and the original report from Shumate on where the bladder bags were originally dropped actually would have been right there near that same ‘last resting spot’ where MacKenzie would shoot his videos.

                Moki Helitack Nate Peck spent the night up there along with Justin Smith and the other Lewis DOC crewmembers.

                I believe there was a piece of evidence that also said he was on the last load of FFs out of there who then ended up talking to the Blue Ridge Hotshots who happened to be ‘staged’ there at the YFD parking lot where the chopper was landing.

                Only fly in the ointment is that I don’t think the Moki Helitack were wearing BLACK helmets, either.

                If that really is Moki Helitack Nate Peck ‘running the door’ of chopper N14HX in some of the AZF photos from Saturday… then Nate Peck was wearing a BLUE hemet, not a BLACK one.

                Regardless… there really is no other plausible explanation for these men seen on the ridge in some of Joy’s photos.

                Granite Mountain still hiking OUT there when these ‘mystery men’ were captured in Joy’s photos.

                Had to be some remnants of the men who spent the night on the ridge after their FAILED Initial Attack on Saturday.

                Reply

                • I have to say, if I could have figured this out by now, I would have. I have many many photographs of Moki Heliack and they’re all keyworded up the wazoo.

                  And I have looked at them and compared them A LOT.

                  Unfortunately, most of these photos show the crew without helmets. Or in blue hats. Or in neither. I’m not sure if that blue helmet it appears Nate Peck is wearing in the video is actually a blue ff helmet or a blue flight helmet. They’re not exactly the same thing. But it’s definitely a head-scratcher.

                  And I have a FB photo of him in September, 2013, holding a RED ff helmet. (I have often wondered “How many helmets do these guys have ANYWAYS??????)

                  There are many photos of the Chase Truck parked on Hays Ranch Road Sunday. In Tom Garigan’s collection, there is a guy with a blue helmet definitely associated with that truck.

                  He also has a bunch of photos with the white truck that later crossed the Air2Air video with the chase truck, and was also seen with it in the Russ Reason video, parked across Hays Ranch Road from the Chase Truck.

                  There are a bunch of fire-fighters milling around in these photos. But they don’t have any helmets on, because because they’ not fighting fire.

                  But the blue helmeted guy is also seen in these photos.

                  Via the photo that that Yarnell resident took of the YFD with the DOC crew at 5:45 Saturday PM (and I can’t remember atm his name but his house burned down), the DOC crew had yellow helmets. So I DO think the blue-helmeted guys in the Guadiana photos and video must be their “overhead.”

                  HOWEVER Jake Guadiana, in one of the videos he captured that evening, USB YARNELL HILL 015.avi, does CLEARLY show a fire-fighter in a BLACK helmet holding a radio.

                  That COULD be the anchor-point for this mystery. That is the ONLY image I have found with a black-helmeted fire-fighter associated with this, besides the photo Joy captured up there Sunday morning (which, all things considered, I have ALWAYS figured was associated with this helitack crew and NOT with the Granite Mountain Hotshots, for all the obvious reasons.

                  But there WAS (at least) ONE firefighter in a black helmet there that Saturday evening.

                  Reply

                  • Yes. Good catch.

                    But we also know the elusive “Justin Smith”, ICT4 Trainee under Russ Shumate, had already been sent up there on Saturday by the time that video was shot.

                    So that could be Smith?

                    OR ( sorry to complicate ) those 2 FFs captured by Joy could have been ‘fresh’ Moki Helitack who came UP on the first flight with N14HX on Sunday to relieve Nate Peck ( he’d been up there all night )… and then THEY walked south the 1/2 mile down from the Helispot and were waiting for N14HX to return with the drop line.

                    Then they just attached all the bladder bags from the day before that had NOT gotten (somehow) burned up when the fire escaped.

                    Then they walked 1/2 mile north again, back to the HELISPOT, and were on the ‘last load’ out of there.

                    Bottom line: Bob Powers is likely right. They were SOME combination of FFs standing in that location just to attach stuff to a drop line.

                    As for the guy sitting alone on that rock and just watching the fire in Joy’s OTHER photograph…

                    …haven’t a clue.

                    Even super-enhancement isn’t reading any color pixels for his helmet… red, blue, green or purple.

                    THAT guy remains a ‘true mystery’.

                    Reply

      • Yarnell librarian Christina Cooper thought me bringing my iguana to the wedding may cause a Bridezilla moment and she said some may perceive me as “attention seeker”…especially folks who do not know me…I think that is what happened in this whole fire aftermath that some think of me as an attention seeker and I am JUST the house wife and DESERT WALKER and that is my part in this and getting as MUCH information DOCUMENTED so when these kids grow up that lost their dad they knew there was Investigative Media folks doing just that…thank you everyone for all the hard work…off to my initiate party at noon than wedding at 5…

        Reply

        • definitely not attention seeking yet I live a lot like a mix of Pippilongstocking (adventures) and Shirley Temple at many phases of her life…My grandpa knew and watched over Shirley Temple…so what someone thinks of me…fine…but again not attention seeker yet I am an adrenaline junkie…or more so “was”

          Reply

      • “even the fantastic man that runs this page John Dougherty scaled the boulders in flip-flops at a pace like mountain goat Tex—but hey, I still try and I still go out and have fun versus eating my mmm…mmm… Hershey bar with almonds”

        LOL, Loving it!!!!!!!!

        This is making my day.

        Thanks Joy!!!

        Reply

        • exactly Marti-

          John Dougherty was TOPS out on the Waevers IN SANDALS…I did write flip flops I am sure I did but I should say toe showing shoes…what I liked about John Dougherty and when he came on a motorcycle—it felt I had a visit from my brother Paul…very much wanting to learn about the Yarnell Fire and very very professional. I have to admit his early on articles were stunners but some of Gary’s posts were too but that’s what I thought was neat…in a world of lost freedoms these men STOOD TALL and spoke/wrote DIRECT and from the heart. I heard alot of people in Prescott when Ered Matthew’s play come out be disgusted I was even a part in any helping of this man John Dougherty…lost a few “so call” friendships over John Dougherty and even got my FIRST ever hearing over John Dougherty’s Investigative Media webpage (aka blog) and like Marti said she would continue to help Joy…I am here on I M to gain clarity for those children who I weep for too many but not enough moments…I think there has been people who grieved one moment of the loved ones who said they could not stand me to now glad I was there 6-30-13…it is all a grieving process…I hold no grudges or carry any burdens of days gone by…back to John Dougherty. So many in Prescott said THIS MAN IS MAKING LOADS OF MONEY OFF THIS…who cares…its called HIS PROFESSION…I do not think he is making money off a tragedy but giving us all the freedom to have a coffee spot or a nightly campfire to park our butts and share publicly vs. whisper, whisper, whisper on the side…that IS the problem in this all…too much whispering and not enough shouting to STOP…ENOUGH…I could sit all night and write amazing things about John Dougherty or Dr. Ted Putnam or Holly (deep loving heart in this whole thing) or Wayne (his cute flex moments I won’ forget and loved his fire terminology education) or John MacLean or Johnny Kirkley from Hawaii or Charley Moseley or Morgan Loew or Fernanda Santos or Michael Kodas/Norbert Hoefler or Josh Eells or Brian Mockenhaupt/Brian Frank or Stephen Pyne or OSHA Bruce Hanna and Brett Steurer…can’t say I liked the article BY Shaun MCKinnon yet I liked the guy and camera guy…AWESOME man Shaun Efran and crew; it was cold but good time with ex GMHS Mando there too. Hey Marti- I have it set to “auto” on the first always for 33 months just in case I am not home or took off on another back country backpack moment; our end is good. I was relieved when Sonny was being Sonny which is not bad but does not match up to what I needed to get done today…I am relieved he did not show to the event. I was surrounded by editors/journalists…people who knew me back as just the desert walker who had gimpy arm who walked from Congress to Wickenburg. I spent most the night speaking to a Congress couple. Sonny would of got a kick out of it. One part to the night I recalled November 11th 1989 this man who was a South Phoenix officer in the area of Roosevelt Street and I knew him and he sat in front of me tonight and who he busted because I use to watch it from roof tops the crime below…kinda similar to this fire he mentioned with me being on the Weaver mountain top I captured crime again because he feels it is a damn crying shame crime that the 19 did not have to die…enough on having to have to remember the fallen and let’s fix the fall and STAND UP—and SPEAK UP!!! Too many cops and other professional fields die because no one talks about the tragedies—just bottle it up until they hit the bottle—
          I am beat tired.
          Good night.
          Sonny, if you see this…I am alright if you stop by…no hard feelings…I just had to get to that event and you had other plans…that did not match mine…it was not a control concern as your mind thinks but I am an avoid-ability gal and I accepted times gone by but for now on I just cannot because alot of the past could of been avoided had I just been firmer…we live amazing moments trailing the desert yet we also live different ways especially when you think a liquid diet from the doctor means barley and malt- corn/rye/wheat…See you on the trails when you are ready to hit them…using blog here because you have no phone and never check emails and Billy said you stopped in a couple times but then left so only option was here that I know you go…all is fine, tired is all.

          Reply

  61. Marti said, “And there is NOTHING more I can really do to help them do that, after all I/we have done here through all this time, to do the dirty and controversial job of picking our way through this whole chaotic mess, with the freedom we have had (by not being, mostly, working wildland fire-fighters), and, thus having NOTHING TO LOSE for saying whatever the heck we decided to say.”

    This is so sudden and expected. I asked how would we know we got the end, but it was only a rhetorical question. I can go on sabbaticals…Marti, you are supposed to be here with WTKTT slogging through reams of bullshit to find gems of information. I don’t know what to say?

    But here is one thing, Retired with 38 asked the question, “If a plan were developed by Marsh, Ops or whomever to pull the crew off the safe black and down to the interface would you as Crew Supt’s make every attempt to have your buggies at you exit point, especially if you knew you were getting a new assignment?”

    So I have been motivated to describe what I was used to fighting hotshot fires, campaign fires, project fires, call them whatever you want, they are big fires that are going to take a lot of resources and a lot of shifts to put out.

    Step 1. Arrive at the fire base camp area. We either got there by driving down the road or flying across the country. Check in with somebody who is charge, at least temporarily. Get a general assignment from somebody who in charge, at least temporarily. The assignment would be very vague. “Go to the (heel, right flank, left flank or head) of the fire and fight it. Get to the fire line, fly there in helicopters, ride there is the back of a big military truck provided by a National Guard transportation company, or a rental school bus or in our own carrier, or just hike there by walking towards the flames and smoke from where we parked the crew carrier.

    Step 2. Work a really long shift that frequently ran to 16 to 24 hours plus whatever we had worked getting to the fire which probably included sleeping on the way. This led to commonly working 24 to 36 hours straight, not counting cat naps that may be taken standing on your feet on the fire line. Survive whatever is thrown at you, fire, terrain, weather, nighttime, heavy smoke, lack of overhead, no overhead, or incompetent overhead without any support or resupply by showing up with, and going to the line with, everything a crew needs to go to work…water, food, tools, fusees, line gear.

    Step 3. Make it back to where you started from where their is now a complete fire camp set up either down the road or in the middle of a remote wilderness, it didn’t matter. There would be big generators, porta potties, klieg lights, caterers, dining tent, crew sleeping areas, supply (where you could get anything you needed) fiancé tent, communications tent with radio caches with radio techs that have been busy setting up repeaters, plans tent with big maps on bulletin boards, copy machines, tables, everything you have in an office, etc, free standing heaters called salamanders, transportation area with either a bunch of big army trucks or big helicopters or both. A little city with everything we needed to fight fire.

    Step 4. Wake up and go to a briefing at the plans tent at either 4:00 p.m. or 4: a.m., depending on whether you were assigned to work day or night shift. At the briefing get a complete rundown of what the fire has done since you went to sleep, look over a big map on a bulletin board while you are given a sheaf of papers, that is called a shift plan. In the shift plan there is everything you need to know to fight the fire, organizational chart, radio frequencies, maps. weather reports, safety concerns e.g., steep terrain, rolling rocks, falling trees, high winds, flames, snakes, poison ivy – pretty much always the same. The maps have organizational boundaries on them, divisions, sectors, helispots, drop points, and most importantly…a narrative telling each person (crew) exactly what they are supposed to do for that shift, who their boss is, who will be working with them, near them or on the other side of the fire from them and all resources available to them. This briefing paper also includes a transportation plan that tells you how you are supposed to get to the fire and get back from the fire. Leave the briefing, your assistant was probably with you at briefing and the squad bosses has gotten the crew ready for the line…all tooled up, watered up with their sack lunches already in their day packs, somebody hands you your lunch, the assistant yells for the crew line up…and we follow the plan by connecting the dots one at a time until the picture is complete. Pretty simple, be a little cog in the wheel. And if you are a hotshot crew, your job is pretty simple…cut hand line and burn it out or backfire it and don’t get seriously hurt or killed while doing it.

    Step 5. Repeat step 4 until the plan you are handed at the briefing is called a demob plan instead of a shift plan, but you still do the same thing…follow the plan by connecting the dots one at a time until you get home or to another fire.

    I still can’t understand what the fuck they were doing on the Yarnell Hill Fire.

    Reply

    • Oh…and one more thing America. Please don’t judge the professional core of wildland firefighters you pay for to protect the billions of dollars of natural resources you own that we as a country have always depended on for almost everything we have or ever will have, wood, water, minerals, gas and oil…everything.

      I fought a lot of fires back in the day from Alaska to the Mexican border and from California to the states on the eastern seaboard and it always went like I described it more or less, federal fire, state fire or fire on private land…it didn’t matter. Sometimes we had more and sometimes we had less, but we never faced anything like they did on the Yarnell Hill Fire.

      Bottom line, your wildland firefighting services and agencies are generally a highly professional and extremely competent bunch of people who almost always do an outstanding job, or you would hear more about them more often.

      Reply

      • Whoops, left out part. And the first shift, counting what you worked before you were dispatched to the fire and the hours worked getting to the fire and then your first shift on the fire, would actually more like 36 to 48 hours, but after that, you got up at 4, either morning or afternoon and then you were on the fire line by 6, either morning or night, work for 12 hours to the next time the big hand on your watch is on 6 again, and then you usually started back to the fire camp because either the day shift or njght shift showed up to take your place on the fire line, although they might be late, just like you were because of unforeseen delays and that point you start working 12 hours shifts plus travel time to and from the line. At that point, you just settle down for the long slog and be a little cog in a great big machine, do your job and depend on everybody else to do theirs and the fire gets put out, either by the wildland firefighters or a change in the weather.

        Reply

        • What happened here in Yarnell indeed would have convinced me that the Forest Service, State, or Local Fire Department is a lackadaisical organization that could give a shit less wherther Yarnell, natural resources, local fauna, and perhaps uninformed camper, trappers, outdoorsmen, etc. located in some obscure canyon burned or not. I have been told the State people actually gave the local fire people the decision as to whether to put the fire out immediately or let it burn. It is said, by sources Dr. Anderson (a former fire board member) had cited that there was an argument as to whether the local firemen should rush up there and do what needed to be done–apparently the boss won out or whomever–the fire was left to burn. Now the State should have ordered them to go but they apparently did not recognize or care to recognize the extreme danger of even a cigarette in this area. It should have been a bright red signal for the area—that fire was only a few miles from Yarnell. My understanding and Bob or Gary will correct me if I am wrong–those wildfires in these conditions can travel as fast as 45 miles per hour. That means it could reach Yarnell in about 5 minutes or less from where it was and at 11 mph that they said it was going then it could would reach Yarnell in 22 minutes if it was about 4 miles away which I estimate its point of origin. Even 5 miles away that fire could reach Yarnell in less than 30 minutes-27 as I calculate and that is travelling at only 11 mph. Knowing all these figures, what were these empty heads thinking that they would not treat that fire as an number one emergency. Likely some on the local fire department did know this and that was the cause of dissension Someone there needs to be reprimanded and maybe several for negligence of duty.

          Now Gary does give me hope that wildland firefighters are indeed an elite group of men who know how to fight fires. They also know when to back off generally. Dr. Ted Putnam explained to me that sometimes the rookie firefighter has to be looked after. He saved two or three and likely many others beside that when he refused to let them take orders from a higher command. He was on the fire and the higher command was not so he could see they would be burned to death if they went down this canyon. Well he had to curse at them to stop them and their gung ho attitude–whether he got thanks for saving their lives or not I do not know–however Ted was relieved that he was able to stop them.

          Which now brings me to the thing I have harped on. That area and what those men did was a gross error in judgement. There is so very much to learn for the rookie fire fighter that it will be a disgrace to the profession if that area does not become a training ground for future fire fighters. You have boulders on each side of the canyon. you have a classical situation where even Joy, the desert walker, thought she could beat, and those men actually believed like her that they could outrun that fire in spite of all calculations of its speedy advance. What more honor can you give those men than to let other young men feel the actual case of which they will certainly entertain later in their efforts as firemen. Those lessons will surely save the new people to the fire fighting profession I would hope people like Gary, Bob or Wayne Neil are at hand to instruct the new fellow. I learned more about safe firefighting in one day hiking with Neil than those men knew in their entire careers. They simply were not taught and as Donut said the rules are hill billy yet what he meant was you do not listen to information that can save your life. While listening to Dr. Putnam and the patience of a Wayne Niel–I was given an understanding of why and how those rules would have saved those men had they taken them seriously. The old timers do take those rules as high priority, something that would keep them from doing what was done here. Something else–the men I have come to know that are firefighters–perhaps would have risked their own lives–a right we have if we are the risk taker–but those men would never put the younger less knowledgeable man at risk. So yes there is accountability here because someone and a bunch of someones put those men at risk. You see, I know this rule from experience since as a miner I was always living at risk. I never saw logging as riskier than mining but indeed it did not involve risking the lives of others unless you dropped a tree on someone that should not have been in your area in the first place. But in mining, when I had risk beyond what is normally expected,. my helper was backed out and I went forward. It is a war underground mining as I see it. But it is a war different to the World Wars. In these wars of mining or fire fighting, the boss has the responsibility of keeping his men safe–If he alone wants to take that risk then so be it. He ought rather to set a good example but here we did not see that.

          What I saw and Joy photographed here was a totally uncontrollable wildfire. Granted it slowly worked its way through the boulders due to low wind conditions and sparse vegetation among the boulders. But once by 11, and some earlier on the side we could not see, it had advanced into the dense dehydrated manzanita, the situation changed from controllable to the stage that all out war could not stop its advance.. We watched sparse retardant drops from small planes at first that had no effect whatsoever on the fire. Then the winds picked up around ten and that fire though it was slowed by its downward progression at first, eventually began the upward progression of the lower hills just below the Weaver Range. That is when I had Joy to time it going up what I figured to be about a half mile rise–then I knew if it changed we needed to be in a safe area.

          Enough–Joy has to be initiated into the American Legion membership.

          .

          Reply

          • sonny said: “Enough–Joy has to be initiated into the American Legion membership.”

            Sonny, if I had known when I walked in that private club to enter closed doors of all women sitting with these reading off sheets and minutes and agendas and such…ugh…when I joined it was because they told Sonny “joy has been in here three times with you, she has to be a member now” and being I help Sonny get home safe vs drink n drive…he paid the dues and they sent me a card and to show up at noon today…????…I am not a gal who sits there in front of a board…last time I did it was over big military man telling me to give him 40 more push ups and I told him to well “cheese and crackers off” because I was in a posh private club because my mother had excellent health insurance and it was available and so no person after a hard ass calisthenics, ropes team building course with idiot team players (zero logic and no competitive team player spirit they had zip…zilch…) and swim and run and weight lifting and basketball and volley ball was going to tell me that at 6am in the tone he did. So dumb. So I had to sit in front of the board as they asked me to apologize to this man and I said “the same man that with eyewitness accounts and one girl Jenn with tape recorder shows the “real” story what led up to my “cheese and crackers”…you see I do not have an ugly way about me until another taunts”…the board looked at me in awe because they thought it was going to be an easy get the girl to apologize and ground her in some disciplined way and I just broke the ice on “the man” so I got the apology not me give it. I one day do expect some apologies from this fire and its aftermath once people start speaking up…and they know who they are…
            Anyways, Sonny that whole meeting at noon…when it was reaching 1:30 mark I had to excuse myself and walk out because not my style that stuff…I felt also I was not going to drive that 73′ Chevy truck; that awful clutch with my bad knee…when my husband got me and went to that wedding- I kept thinking definitely Sonny would not want to be in that sort of Christian dancing and singing and etc. setting so I think I made the proper choice…Please do not ask me to volunteer or be a part of an organization—not my style. I thought you paid a due so I can sit next to you and make sure you get home safe but that was not what I was getting from that meeting…If marti hypothetically said “Joy, I need my house painted”…I would reply to Marti “Budget? or no budget? Traditional or Faux Finish or Murals? Exterior or Interior? Than git r done is what I like to do but this meeting today was about who would want to volunteer for clean-up? Not many. You look around the room and I saw a lady in her 90’s…I think a board member should be direct and say to 44 y.o. lady “Bobbi Jean, I think your talents are great at painting so when we get things cleaned up and walls washed, when could you be available to do something like that because this is our legion and it takes us all to participate vs. allowing ladies in their 90’s to raise their hand. I thought ??? but it did reconfirm…YOU GO my GOLDEN GENERATION FOLKS! I met 85 y.o. father of the bride tonight and he is from Brooklyn, NY and we knew alot about the same spots of NJ/NY; it was nice to talk old school with the fella and his wife and then he broke out the harmonica and played my songs from Eddie Arnold; richest man in the world and Ray Price For the Good Times…I did not learn a lick on the fire except people’s perceptions- no photos and no leads to photos. Okay, good night. BUT IT IS TIME YOU HEAR ME GOD—I know I say in YOUR time GOD so please make it YOUR time and get this rolling for more to start speaking about the YHF that were there…thank you God!

            Reply

          • I believe the Yarnell Hill Fire was an aberration and the entire wildland firefighting culture should not be judged by that fire and what happened there. But if that fire is your only point of reference, I can certainly understand why you would question the integrity of the system as a whole.

            Reply

  62. I just wrote:
    —————————–

    Marti Reed says
    JUNE 19, 2015 AT 9:22 PM

    We’re having a lightning/electrical storm right now.
    ———————

    If anybody is even remotely interested in observing lightning storms (which can cause wildfires), in their own area or in other areas. go here (where I am), and then find your own (or your interested) place:

    http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime?lang=en

    Reply

    • This is where I observed, last year, all the bits and pieces of the entire Carlton Complex, in the state of Washington, ignite.

      Reply

  63. Ok. I”m going to say something here. Something I’ve been thinking about for a long long time. And maybe have even said before. But not as firmly and with as much dedication as I’m going to say it now.

    I think it’s partly why I wrote downstream in a comment to Gary Olson that, after I read WTKTT’s narrative, and digested it, and made a few comments…………………….

    I felt both positively and negatively
    …………………………………finished.

    I mean, really, I sat there and had this huge sense of “finished” flow over and around me.

    I will never be actually truly finished with this fire. But I feel somehow that my quest here, and responsibility here, is somehow, “completed.”

    I really do believe we found the answer. It needs a lot more fleshing out, but I really do think we have discovered the “why.” And it took pretty much 24/7 from me over the past week, not to mention ALL the work we have put in since this whole conversation began, to co-discover that “why.”

    And here’s another reason why I feel “finished.”

    Because I really believe, at this point, it truly is TIME for wildland fire-fighters to step up to the plate and OWN this fire. Until they do that, they will never ever truly learn what this fire is trying to teach them.

    And it is NOT MY responsibility to do that for them.

    And there is NOTHING more I can really do to help them do that, after all I/we have done here through all this time, to do the dirty and controversial job of picking our way through this whole chaotic mess, with the freedom we have had (by not being, mostly, working wildland fire-fighters), and, thus having NOTHING TO LOSE for saying whatever the heck we decided to say.

    But, really.

    It’s YOUR turn to OWN this thing, and QUESTION this thing, and CHALLENGE this thing, and DO SOMETHING with this thing, because there is, truly nothing more I can do until you do what is YOURS to do to TAKE SOME KIND OF REAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIS THING and how it happened and what needs to be done about that by wildland fire-fighters.

    It’s YOUR defensible space around YOU and YOUR house and YOUR family. What are YOU going to do to create YOUR defensible space?

    Because I can’t do that for you.

    That’s why I wrote that, as I sat there and contemplated that narrative that we have struggled for this almost two years to find enough evidence to create, I felt “finished.”

    It’s YOUR turn.

    And THANK YOU for all the various things you have done, on your websites and blogs, and via your awesome and very helpful YouTube videos, and within the various conversations I have lurked and anonymously peered into, when I could find them, and whatever helpful comments you have left in these multiple chapters…………………..

    …………to teach me about how wildland fire-fighters fight wildland fires. I promise to use that generously donated knowledge to help my civilian friends and relations respect and understand and support that as much as I can.

    Namaste.

    Reply

    • And PS.

      I will continue to support Joy in her continuing quest to also keep pursuing the Truth, (because she LIVES there and can’t just walk away, and because I KNOW she has a powerful spiritual connection with these 19 wildland fireighters), in whatever way I can, even though sometimes I may come in a little bit late because I hate email (especially Apple Mail)……….

      ……….and because she has given to me SO MUCH INSPIRATION every time I feel (and I have felt this a lot) like the burdens I am (literally and physically and emotionally and mentally) carrying are just so much bigger than I am, and she knows exactly what I am talking about when I am saying this.

      Reply

    • Marti, first thank you for all your time and commitment to finding the facts of this tragedy. I still struggle with the fact that we (especially you and a few others) have established far more detail than the “official reports” were able to produce, and again I truly appreciate the efforts to this point.
      I have been a wildland firefighter for 38 years, and quite frankly I am embarrassed and ashamed with this entire event, from the failed initial attack through the BS report from the SAIR. We are in a dangerous and hazardous business, and sometimes things go wrong.
      We have always tried to become stronger and better from these events, identifying the mistakes made and learning from those mistakes and moving forward – always remembering the lessons learned and the FF’s that paid the price.
      So, for the firefighters out there that have information that we can learn from, step up – and for the federal agencies that have placed a “gag order” on the people that have information let them talk. We all want to learn from “real details”.
      Just seems ironic that USFS calls themselves a “Learning organization” yet they wont release the facts or allow their employees to talk about the most significant fatality fire in the history of wildland firefighting. And for the non federal FF’s that have established that “brotherhood” and code of silence, think about it – in the short term it may work, but for the entire WFF’s we need to know the facts so we can reduce the chance of it happening again.

      Reply

        • Well Said another AMEN

          Marti there have been severial Current Fire Fighters that have come on her and
          joined the conversation I am sure many more are following us and talking to some in my local area they are searching and asking questions and not letting this just go away. You have done some awesome work here and it has rewarded us with many details.
          Stay the course all is not lost. none of us expect you to Carrie the entire load chose your time and lighten your burden as we move along.
          Thanks you are and have special qualities that have helped us move forward.

          Reply

  64. Yesterday was very frustrating with technology. Aguila library had 2 power outages right in middle of my printing some important documents. All lost. ***frustrating*** I went to Wickenburg and than as the night unfolded a person shared “do not send that letter Joy to Paul Morin”. I thought if I only ask one direct question to 17613 W Westward Dr Yarnell and if he was the dozer operator because Hunter family had damage to their 2 story home wall by a dozer on 6-30-13 before fire engulfed it…and some ?s of another. I heard “Joy, do not. I know your heart is in this but I also know the whole area over there. Morin has a wife who works in county and relatives who has or still does work in the firefighter/Prescott Hotshot community. You are not liked by some in that area. Let someone else do that ground work. I doubt the man would answer you anyways. Be careful. You are not viewed by all for who you are but what they perceive you to be…”

    Now for a person who use to write on here that seems to think I want further online communication…let me make it crystal clear; I do not—only in person only or nothing at all—-…June 14 at 9pm on IM I stated no more and at 9:07pm you wrote (number one) and I will not reply..On June 16th 12:02pm I got an email requesting photos. (number two) I did not reply. June 19th 5:54am (number three) you sent me an email that belonged to Sonny only because first off I did not even know of the IM post in email by him until I saw your email today. I am not Sonny. He has his way of things and I have my way of things—the only thing that roots us is our hikes and the desert and caves…and similar food intake but not liquid intake unless its freshly juiced carrot and ginger juice…I learned by my case what injunctions mean and your continued communication when I asked you to only do in person communication…((((Injunction Against Harassment
    The Defendant has committed a series of
    acts (more than one) of harassment/annoyance against
    you in the last year)))))) I got first hand to see how simple they pass these out now too to mark another’s character for what and why. I would not do this to anyone even to the men who left me for dead and a person who sits in jail and gets out soon for dismembering a body and I have a feeling I am on their list because I am a relative not by blood and I would not even do that to them more than likely…I help people with severe mental conditions/disabilities/criminally insane to re-adjust to a new-normal in this modern society and I would not even do that to them and I have been in some near death moments with some of their ill/off behaviors. I respect people their freedom to write and if I see something out of sort I correct it. I did not attack you as you asked why I did…yet down below I commented someone named this a gossip site on another blog and Mr. Powers mentioned your name and let’s just look at that site…sounds a lot like the phone conversations and email topics we spoke about minus the praises someone made on the site. You have spoke about this Fred and weather to me. This blog has no ABOUT ME/US page to see who owner of page to check out the reliability of the site…so it is safe to assume because in October 2013 you asked us both what do we want to see out of the investigations and we replied the cell records and as October & November unfolded into December 2013 you told us next week in Dec 2013 you were due to get the FOIA/FOIL in and than we never heard anything from you on them… just public youtube videos and such after Holly’s article at Gabbert’s. Also all I have ever said about you and that was to you and others on IM that I like you and your prior videos before the fire yet I do not like how you ask for all the questions of yours to be answered with my sources as you say “anything we share to you is complete confidentiality” yet have you listened yet to my case’s transcripts with Willis/Dr. Ted Putnam and etc???? (once you do you will see why) and if they do not meet your thoughts you want to carry on back and forth on days I have been under the weather and so I kindly stated publicly I cannot do it anymore…no more online communications about you or directed to you nor from you to me….unless you write about the hikers publicly…if you do not…you will never hear me mention you again even if others end up doing so Enough on that. Remedy? Always with Joy. But not anytime soon. I have Sonny who is having a lung procedure and heart surgery and a mom in a grieving spot over the loss of so many in one swallow in our family and yet stubborn me still kicks trying to reverse history and labs and make for a better today and tomorrow…if you are all for BETTER todays and tomorrows than fine…I have a journalist’s wedding to go to tomorrow and I just look forward to seeing her getting married yet dread this heat…ok, going to read…have 8 minutes left on library time…reserved for another…

    Reply

    • Joy is a straight shooter. She shuts down with people that use ploys and deception to get her information–I have seen it first hand. As far as I have seen no one on this site has offended that rule of life. These people here are not liked in certain circles because they are actively exposing the white washed reasons the 19 young men were killed. However, their aggravation is minute compared to the pain that the loved ones have suffered in this ordeal. I speak from the heart and from my own experience of loss. You can bet the loved ones are thanking those involved in finding out the truth of why they died. Many firefighters are in favor of learning the truth, especially those that are of lower ranks. They want to know if their leaders are qualified to lead them into a dangerous situation. Obviously here in the Yarnell fire situation we had incompetence from the get go. That is perhaps only one of the things that needs to be addressed here but there are many lessons to be learned out of this screw up. Those lessons will save future lives.

      One thing I have brought up with people involved and not involved is that that area ought to be a training area as to what not to do and what options can be made that would have saved those men. I would be the first to stand in the middle of those boulders to the south if another fire happens in that bowl should another fire happen in that manzanita. It likely will because it is already back enough that another wild fire is possible. I believe they would have survived in the boulders—and they had clear areas much larger than the Helms so called bomb proof area. But there are so many things to be learned there for the rookie fire fighter that it would be a shame not to use that area for training–and to even train not so informed boss fire fighter figures.

      Thanks Marti, WTKTT, Bob Powers, Gary Olsen, Otis in the UK, Federal Officers like Charley Mosley, and investigators such as Dr. Ted Putnam, Bruce Hanna Bret Steuter, Wayne and Holley Neil, locals whom have shared so much with us and the many who did hike and see what they did not really want to see–yet had to know the truth. May all you concerned and wise people continue to bring to light and educate those of us who want the truth continue to be diligent to the task. Please do not quit until this is finished.

      Reply

      • Sonny, you wrote:

        “Obviously here in the Yarnell fire situation we had incompetence from the get go. That is perhaps only one of the things that needs to be addressed here but there are many lessons to be learned out of this screw up. Those lessons will save future lives.”

        And yes I totally agree.

        And that “incompetence from the get go” is what ADOSH addressed (at least as much as they had the limited time and also need to do so before they levied their possible maximum fines) but still hasn’t been adequately addressed, imho, by the wildland fire-fighting community. Not even remotely.

        Especially if they are really serious about “what will save future lives.”

        Reply

  65. **
    ** PHOTO(S) OF WHERE THE DOZER MIGHT HAVE HAD TO RIDE OUT THE FIRE

    As long as we are re-visiting this whole mystery of why Yavapai County Public Works employee and dozer operator Paul Morin was added to the ‘missing persons’ list following the deployment… I think the following is relevant.

    There have always been some pretty clear photos of this ‘staging area’ at the bottom of the Sesame clearing area where the dozer LOBOY was staged, and where Mr. Morin might have had to ‘ride out the burnover’ in either the cab of the dozer or the cab of the LOBOY trailer.

    They were taken by ADOSH investigators on one of their hikes.

    On the hike they took on September 18, 2013, the ADOSH investigators actually BEGAN their hike there at the end of Lakewood and Manzanita Drives ( where the pavement ends ).

    They then started walking WEST, through that ‘white fence’ that was there and then on into the Sesame clearing area where the Granite Mountain vehicles had been staged.

    The FIRST THREE photos in the folder from this hike were taken just as they were about to pass through the ‘white fence’ and they show the exact ‘clearing’ where both the Yavapai County dozer LOBOY trailer and the Blue Ridge Chase Truck with Polaris trailer were staged.

    Here’s a direct jumplink to that folder in the ADOSH Dropbox…

    “Yarnell Hill Investigation / Photos and Videos / ADOSH Hiking Yarnell Hill 9 18 13”

    https://www.dropbox.com/sh/20inrene9tcx74a/AAD3qBIoirUtUPykDaoj_5KMa/ADOSH%20Yarnell%20Hill%20Investigation/Photos%20and%20Video/ADOSH%20Hiking%20Yarnell%20Hill%209%2018%2013?dl=0

    Look at the first THREE photos in this folder…

    P9180001.JPG
    P9180001.JPG
    P9180001.JPG – The best view of where Dozer LOBOY was staged

    It’s pretty safe to say, looking at these photos, that the area was survivable.

    It would have been more like a ‘burn-around’ as was the case with Boulder Springs Ranch.

    Reply

  66. Reply to Marti Reed post on June 18, 2015 at 8:59 pm

    >> Marti Reed said…
    >>
    >> You wrote:
    >>
    >> “So yes… if anyone was in the right POSITION to see if there
    >> was anything resembling a chance at putting in an emergency
    >> dozer line that *might* make the fire skirt AROUND Glen Ilah
    >> rather than go THROUGH it…
    >>
    >> …that person would have been “top o’ the world” DIVSA Eric Marsh.”
    >>
    >> OK, I”ll toss in a little pebble into these waters, just to see if If I’m wrong.
    >> And you can roll your eyes into the back of your head in exasperation.
    >> Because I KNOW you have a vastly more complete set of timelines on
    >> all of this than I do, and I have to even keep searching, via Google, this
    >> website to find things that I have never even read, or read (or even
    >> wrote) that I have, by now, lost track of.
    >>
    >> So I’m OK with being embarrassed by asking this.
    >>
    >> Where do you think Eric was actually located during this?

    The same place he spent most of the afternoon.

    At a spot on the high ridge, about 1/4 mile north of where Steed and the Crew were working.

    Perhaps even standing up on the Helispot, which was one of the highest points up in that area but not too far north of the GM workplace.

    It was the perfect place to see all of the things the testimony reports him seeing such as the fire burning through the retardant line and, later, his reporting that the fire had reached the place where the GM vehicles had been parked, etc.

    This would also match the testimony from Brendan McDonough that Marsh was, for most of the afternoon, at a spot on the ridge roughly due west of Brendan’s lookout mound, but up high on the ridge.

    Brendan described Marsh’s location as “above me up on the hill”.

    From PDF page 12 of Brendan’s SECOND ADOSH interview on 10/10/2013

    Q1 = Bruce Hannah, ADOSH investigator
    Q2 = Marshall Krotenberg, ADOSH investigator
    A = Brendan McDonough
    ———————————————————
    538 Q1: Steed could you see move?
    539
    540 A: Yeah.
    541
    542 Q1: Okay.
    543
    544 A: And so can Eric ‘cause Eric was kinda above me up on the hill.

    588 Q2: Got it.
    589
    590 A: ‘Cause Eric was, like, literally right above me pretty much, I mean,
    591 everywhere that I wanted to say, he was telling Jesse. So, I mean, it’s kinda
    592 pointless. At that point, it was like, “Eric, I’m seeing the same thing.” He’s
    593 like, “Yeah, of course,” you know?
    ———————————————————

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> Assuming that our current general consensus is that, at some time,
    >> Eric was moving down somewhere near the Boulder Springs Ranch,
    >> where he may have “ordered” Jesse to bring the crew down (the “pull”
    >> theory), at a bit before 4:27 when he said “They’re coming off the
    >> heel of the fire.”

    Yes. It’s pretty safe to say that when we hear Eric telling whoever it was that he was reporting TO in the YARNELL-GAMBLE video that they (GM) were “comin’ from the heel of the fire”… it was shortly after the alleged ‘argument’, Marsh had already ORDERED him to bring the men down, and Steed had already capitulated and he and the men were already descending into the box canyon.

    Marsh said that at exactly 4:27 PM.

    The SAIR says the ‘Descent’ began at 4:20 PM.

    The first MAYDAY was going to come at 4:39 PM.

    So ( theoretically )… when Marsh reported to this mystery person that “They’re comin’ from the heel of the fire”… Steed and Crew were about halfway between the Descent Point and the eventual deployment site and already ‘blind’ to what was approaching the mouth of the box canyon.

    If you are asking me to say exactly where MARSH himself was when he said “They’re comin’ from the heel of the fire”…

    …basically your guess is as good as mine.

    Somewhere between the eventual deployment site and the west edge of the Boulder Springs Ranch?

    Calvin has always theorized he was up on one of those small mounds that are there just west of the western edge of the Boulder Springs Ranch.

    He might be right… but ( of course ) my only problem with that has always been that it would be absolutely unimaginable that if he was actually up on one of those mounds that he would NOT have been able to see ( and been fully aware of ) the fireline fast approaching the mouth of the canyon long before it actually got there.

    In other words… he would have had a relatively crystal clear view of the fireline approaching and it is inconceivable he would have then let his own men walk into a deathtrap like they did.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> Obviously he was somewhere “up above” where the GM Hotshots
    >> were (I guess) when he asked Frisby to come up and meet with him.
    >> Along about 3:30, I guess.

    Yes. We are now back to 3:30 PM and I believe Marsh was still there in that general area where Brendan says he was. Just ‘above’ the lookout mound but up on the high ridge. Perhaps at the Helispot itself.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> When, we’re currently thinking he may have been contemplating
    >> the possibility/necessity of putting in this line.

    Yes. Right after Marsh watched the fire march right over that retardant line ( and reported this event on a TAC channel ), I believe it’s possible he realized what was GOING to happen and he only then turned his focus back towards Yarnell and Glen Ilah.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> So, yes, at that time he was the penultimate “eyes on the fire.”

    Correct.

    He may have then started using his own binoculars from that ‘near the Helispot’ location to see if he saw ANY possibility of any emergency ‘defensive’ work off there on the outskirts of both Yarnell and Glen Ilah.

    It actually would have been his JOB to be doing that, at that point.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> But where was he when, possibily Musser was pinging him at
    >> about 3:40-ish, or when Cordes and Musser were “sketching the
    >> plan on a napkin” at 3:50-ish to 4:00?

    Musser’s callout to DIVSA Marsh came at exactly 3:42 PM.

    Marsh didn’t answer him right away because this is also the same exact moment that Brian Frisby had accidentally stumbled across McDonoug and was loading him into the UTV and informing Marsh/Steed this is what was happening.

    That’s when the “Do you want us to move your vehicles?” conversations were also taking place and Marsh was involved in those exchanges with Frisby as well.

    So the Panebaker Air Study Video that captures OPS2 Paul Musser’s callout to DIVSA Marsh at exactly 3:42 PM ENDS before we ever hear DIVSA Marsh respond.

    We have to assume that the minute he was done talking to Frisby and confirming it would be “goodness” to move ALL the GM vehicles… Marsh responded to OPS2 Paul Musser’s 3:42 PM callout to him and they then had this infamous “availability check” exchanges.

    Call it 3:43 or 3:44 when that actually happened.

    Now… to answer your question “Where was he when THIS happened?”

    We are now 12 minutes past the time when Marsh first asked Frisby to head up for that second face-to-face.

    I believe that as soon as Frisby said he WOULD be coming up is when Marsh then started ‘picking his way through the black’ up there and working his way back SOUTH towards the actual spot where Steed and the Crew were working…and where he knew Brian Frisby would be arriving for the requested face-to-face.

    So by the time 3:42 PM came and Frisby called up to say he would NOT be coming up for the face-to-face because he was now going to just ‘rescue’ Brendan… Marsh had probably already made it all the way back to where Steed and the crew were working ( E.g. the anchor point ) and where he thought Frisby was about to arrive.

    I believe Marsh was actually physically WITH Jesse Steed again, at this moment, and for really one of the only few times that day they were physically in the same place at the same time.

    I also believe some “What do we do now?” conversations took place between Marsh and Steed ‘in person’ and with no radio traffic being generated.

    I believe this is when Marsh FIRST asked Steed ( face-to-face ) about his ‘comfort level’ for doing something… since by the time we here that ‘comfort level’ phrase again in the Christopher MacKenzie videos… Marsh says to Steed “That’s why I was askin’ ya BEFORE what your comfort level was”.

    I believe the “asked ya BEFORE” is referencing some part of the conversation they had in-person earlier on, when Marsh himself was at the anchor point.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> Is it possible that at that time he was down below enough that he
    >> no longer had that awesome view of what the fire was doing?

    If by “at that time” you are still referring to 3:42 PM and both the conversations with Frisby about moving the vehicles and then ( immediately after that ) the “availability check” conversation with OPS2 Paul Musser…

    …then no. I don’t think Marsh had started heading south yet.

    I believe he was still there at the ‘anchor point’ and physically with Steed circa 3:42 and had been expecting Frisby to arrive there as well.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> I’m just asking for a friend.

    Tell your friend the only dumb question is the one that is never asked.

    And it pains me to think how relative that well-worn phrase is with regards to the actual ADOSH interviews… and all the questions that never got asked.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> And, during the time Cordes and Musser were actually IMPLEMENTING
    >> that plan, is there any evidence they were actually in communication
    >> with him as he was descending lower and lower, while (I would assume)
    >> losing more and more of that awesome bird’s eye view?
    >> (Other than, possibly, something related to that 4:27 communication).

    Actually, there is.

    It’s in the form of that confusing testimony from Gary Cordes when he tells ADOSH he learned that the fire had now burned past the old-grader itself, but Cordes couldn’t remember if he heard that from Marsh himself or whether he was told that by Frisby… who had heard it from Marsh.

    The fire didn’t actually burn past the old-grader itself until AFTER 4:05 PM, and Jesse and the men had already left the safe black and were heading south.

    So if Cordes heard this ‘news’ from Marsh himself it seems to mean at least two things…

    1) Cordes WAS in communication with Marsh as he was making his way to the BSR.

    2) Marsh had still been ‘high enough’ and able to see ‘well enough’ to look back over his shoulder as he hiked south and see that the fire had overtaken the old-grader… and he reported this ( either direct to Cordes or to Frisby who then passed that ‘news’ on to Cordes ).

    Continued next message…

    Reply

    • >> Marti also wrote…
      >>
      >> Or were Cordes and Musser just assuming that whatever Eric might
      >> have communicated somewhere between 3:40 and 4 was still continuing
      >> to be reliable? Even while/after the fire was, ala Cordes, exceeding
      >> his/their expectations?

      If the ‘plan’ itself had originated with Marsh… and he first discussed it with Musser on that 3:42 “availability” check… then I think the wheels had already been set in motion down in Yarnell and Cordes had already then given Cory Ball his “scout dozer line to protect Glen Ilah” assignment.

      At that point… eveyone thought they knew what to do and there wasn’t much need for further communication.

      But there WERE some ‘communications’.

      At 4:13 PM is when we hear that voice with the slight Cajun accent calling out to Granite Mountain and asking… “Granite Montun… wuz yo status rat now?”

      That’s when Eric Marsh said “Well… uh… the guys… uh…. Granite Mountain, is makin’ their way out the escape route from the mornin… SOUTH… mid-slope, cuttin’ over”

      And then in response to the next question “Are you WITH Granite Mountain right now?” Marsh DODGED that question and just said…

      “Just checkin’ it out to see where we gonna jump out at”.

      We do NOT here any discussion of any ‘plan’ during THESE ‘status check’ calls from whoever the hell it was making those radio calls.

      It was then at 4:27 PM when someone ( not Marsh ) got nervous and was wondering why Marsh and Granite Mountain hadn’t appeared in town yet.

      That’s when the YARNELL-GAMBLE video was shot and Marsh appears to tell someone who wanted him to “Hurry up” that “They’re comin’ from the heel of the fire”.

      But there are no specific conversations captured that mention any ‘plan’.

      It doesn’t mean they didn’t happen via either radio or cellphone.

      They just aren’t in any audio captures and no one has testified hearing anything like that.

      Keep in mind that Cordes and Musser, down there in town, could only SEE what they could SEE.

      In other words… they were clueless as to what was happening out in the bowl/valley itself. They would have had no idea whether any fire was threatening Granite Mountain or coming in so fast from ‘out there’ that any ‘plan’ about protecting Glen Ilah was pointless.

      Cordes and Musser would have needed ‘other intel’ for that… and Cordes no longer even had the ability to transmit on the Air-To-Ground channel and even ASK the flyboys what was going on.

      I believe we have established that at some point… Cordes DID get the ‘intel’ he needed about ‘the plan’ and whether it was going to come together… and he got that from Cory Ball himself.

      At some point… Cory Ball had to call Cordes and/or Musser and say…

      “You know that emergency dozer line scouting to protect Glen Ilah you told me to do? Well guess what… I got all bollocksed up and couldn’t even get back to the dozer guy out there at the west end of Glen Ilah”.

      >> Marti also said…
      >>
      >> As I write this, I’m realizing this may be a pointless theoretical set
      >> of questions. Given what was actually happening during that time.

      It’s not a pointless set of questions.

      It’s about realizing that a coin always has THREE SIDES ( not just TWO ), and whether standing the coin on its THIRD side ( its edge ) shows us anything new.

      I will grant you… even if Marsh was the ‘author’ of any kind of plan to put in any kind of emergency dozer line… there are still pieces of evidence missing that would make that all make sense.

      But that’s pretty much the same for the ‘other’ sides of the coin.

      We have evidence that it could have come from Cordes and/or Musser… and then Granite Mountain got involved AFTER they set the wheels in motion…

      …but that’s “incomplete evidence” and a “sealed envelope” as well.

      My bottom line is that even with some bumps and warts and obvious other unanswered questions… I would BELIEVE that if there was a plan for more dozer line near Glen Ilah and this DID have anything to do with Granite Mountain leaving the black…

      … I would BELIEVE that this ‘plan’ actually did ‘incubate’ with DIVSA Marsh himself and then he became the de-facto AUTHOR of ‘the plan’.

      Reply

      • I think your putting way to much mental gymnastics and planning on Marsh he may have been part of the plan but the mental creator of it?????

        Again they were running a gauntlet on a slim time table that was way to tight to accomplish the objective. This is a bad division with the really bad outcome.

        Protecting structures that were not in a position of Defensible space is folly Wild land Fire Fighters Die buy getting into Subdivisions with no defensible space we have been talking about that for this entire time.

        Some where in the report there was a discussion that there was little defensible space in Yarnell and Glen Isla. No place to really make a stand to save structures.
        It may have been Willis that had surveyed that and reported on it.

        This whole plan was a day late and a dollar short—-and the OPS/IC and others should have known it. Trying to put together in one hour a possible tractor push and burn out with a Fire going to hell within a quarter of a mile from a Subdivision
        is nothing but a plan for disaster by Over Head that have no clue.

        That’s my evaluation of this Whole plan— Not that it wasn’t put together but that it was a hail marry with a disasters’ out come that no one considered.

        Reply

          • I really believe that everybody, at least those on the south side of the fire, should have been ORDERED by Incident Command/Incident Management Team off the fire and into safety zones no later than 3 PM, if not sooner, with that weather coming in, combined with peak burning hours.

            I’m not so sure about the ones on the north end. They were actually kind of accomplishing something. But they also had engines. And relentless air support.

            Instead, Incident Command had no clue what was going on on his fire (except for that his ICP was in danger, so all stops pulled to protect that) and Incident Management wandered into concocting this hair-brained plan that, all things considered, should have been scotched by 4 PM.

            OK. I’m just an arm-chair civilian monday-morning quarterback who has no clue.

            Reply

            • “this hair-brained plan that, all things considered, should have been scotched by 4 PM.”

              Regardless of who – of the triad Marsh/Cordes/Musser – originally incubated it.

              Reply

              • Reply to Marti Reed post on June 19, 2015 at 8:14 am

                >> Marti Reed said…
                >>
                >> “this hair-brained plan that, all things considered,
                >> should have been scotched by 4 PM.”
                >>
                >> Regardless of who – of
                >> the triad Marsh/Cordes/Musser – originally
                >> incubated it.

                Agree… but the ‘takeaway’ here from this thread is that as we continue to apply ‘steam’ to this particular ‘envelope’ of mystery that still needs more evidence…

                …it behooves us to remember that it *could* have been a TRIAD of ‘authors’… and not just some idea in the mind of one person.

                One of those potential ‘authors’ died.

                But the other two are still with us and NOT protected by a Federal GAG order.

                Reply

                • Exactly.

                  I find myself, at this moment, wondering what the lawyers for the families in the wrongful death lawsuits, have, themselves, discovered about THIS whole thing.

                  I really hope, given that we unpaid AMATEURS have managed to connect all these dots to FINALLY find this, their PAID lawyers and their PAID staffs have managed to connect all these dots, also. Or if they haven’t, they REALLY NEED to.

                  Or else these families and their lawyers have every right and responsibility to shut down all that “Settlement” crappola and force these people to a witness stand.

                  Reply

        • Reply to Bob Powers post on June 19, 2015 at 6:37 am

          >> Bob Powers said…
          >>
          >> I think your putting way to much mental gymnastics and
          >> planning on Marsh he may have been part of the plan
          >> but the mental creator of it?????

          At the very least, I believe Marsh must have heard the same radio transmissions ( on TAC ) where Gary Cordes himself was telling Blue Ridge Hotshot and DOZB Cory Ball to go ‘scout’ this potential ‘hail-mary’ plan.

          There no reason to believe Marsh did NOT hear the radio traffic that matches this clear and unambiguous directive from Cordes as reported by Cory Ball in his official (signed) Unit Log…

          “Structure group one assigns me and one other to locate possibility of dozer line to southwest of Yarnell.”

          Now whether that ‘assignment’ from Cordes to Ball ( and one other ) was preceded by a conversation with Marsh himself… who might have been actually making the suggestion to do this… that’s what we don’t know.

          Only Gary Cordes ( or anyone who might have heard THAT conversation on the radio ) could tell us that.

          >> Bob Powers…
          >>
          >> Some where in the report there was a discussion that there
          >> was little defensible space in Yarnell and Glen Isla. No place
          >> to really make a stand to save structures.

          Yes. That was SPGS1 Gary Cordes’ evaluation from his scouting in the wee hours of Sunday, June 30, 2013.

          But then there they were… first thing Sunday morning ( and all day )… spending hundreds of thousands of dollars doing exactly that.

          If you read Gary Cordes’ scouting reports the right way… then the only thing they should have been doing first thing Sunday morning is assisting with full evacuations of both Yarnell and Glen Ilah.

          >> Bob Powers also said…
          >>
          >> It may have been Willis that had surveyed that and reported on it.

          At the same time Gary Cordes was scouting Yarnell and Glen Ilah in the wee hours of Sunday morning… Darrell Willis ( SPGS2 ) was doing the same ‘evaluations’ on the NORTH side in the Model Creek and Peeples Vallery area.

          His conclusions were pretty much the same as Cordes’ down there in Yarnell.

          If the fire came in… there wasn’t much anyone would be able to do.

          “Non-defensible structures”

          Yet again… just like on the SOUTH side… the moment resources started showing up on Sunday morning… a tremendous effort was then made on the NORTH side to try and “Defend structures” like the Double-Bar-A Ranch.

          Darrell Willis’ scouting report even specifically mentioned the Double-Bar-A Ranch off by itself there in the middle of nowhere and the middle of all that FUEL… and he called it “Not defensible”.

          But THOUSANDS of dollars were wasted trying to defend it.

          We still don’t really know who either over-rode Willis’ scouting report on that one location, or just never paid any attention to it at all and sent tons of resources out there in that failed effort to protect it.

          The Model Creek Road defensive stand was a better try… but even Darrell Willis himself told ADOSH that it wasn’t anything they did that made the fire sort of ‘pull up’ at the Model Creek Road.

          It was simply the fact that the wind changed, and the fire decided to do a 180 turnaround that day.

          Willis told ADOSH that if that had not happened…. then the fire would have still just kept marching north and the community of Peeples Valley would have ended up looking pretty much like Glen Ilah.

          Not TOTAL devastation… but skipty-bumpus devastation.

          I guess my point is… pretty much EVERYTHING ( with a few exceptions ) they were doing was ‘wasted effort’ that day… so a last-minute plan to push just one more worthless dozer line would have just been ‘normal’ for the way that fire was being handled.

          >> Bob Powers also said…
          >>
          >> This whole plan was a day late and a dollar short—-and
          >> the OPS/IC and others should have known it. Trying to put
          >> together in one hour a possible tractor push and burn out with a
          >> Fire going to hell within a quarter of a mile from a Subdivision
          >> is nothing but a plan for disaster by Over Head that have no clue.

          I agree. It was folly.

          So was pretty much EVERYTHING they thought they were doing.

          >> Bob Powers also said…
          >>
          >> That’s my evaluation of this Whole plan— Not that it wasn’t
          >> put together but that it was a hail marry with a disasters’
          >> out come that no one considered.

          Totally agree.

          The ‘takeaway’ from this thread, though, is that if this ‘hail mary’ plan existed at all… it’s very likely that it had THREE potential authors, and not just two.

          DIVSA Eric Marsh, SPGS1 Gary Cordes and OPS2 Paul Musser.

          It was a TRIAD of potential authors… and a THREE sided coin.

          One of them died.

          But two are left and not protected by any Federal GAG orders.

          Reply

          • And what the hell were they doing putting Fire Fighters at RISK to save
            Structures. That could not be saved and a last minuet effort at that.
            Like the State said they were not responsible to save structures.
            And all day they put people in that position and in the end almost caused additional Fatalities on the fire. which they were cited for by ADOSH.

            Reply

            • “Like the State said they were not responsible to save structures.
              And all day they put people in that position and in the end almost caused additional Fatalities on the fire. which they were cited for by ADOSH.”

              Excellent point.

              Just one OTHER of the profound ironies of this fire.

              Reply

              • Yes. Thousands and thousands and thousands of taxpayer dollars were spent all that weekend doing nothing but things the Arizona Forestry lawyers have now claimed were never, for one second, their responsibility to even be attempting…

                …and 19 lives were lost doing these same things that no one was supposed to be doing ( legally speaking ).

                I.Just.Can’t.

                Reply

                • And at least one Judge has AGREED with the Arizona Forestry lawyers.

                  The Judge’s ruling said…

                  “I agree. You ( as an agency ) never had one single atomic molecule of either duty or responsibility to be lifting one single finger to protect any structure or piece of property… or to see that any of these same taxpayers who pay your salaries and who were in harm’s way were properly notified to evacuate. Period. End of story. Have a nice day”.

                  Again… I.Just.Can’t.

                  Reply

      • Thanks for the great run-down and excellent timeline, WTKTT.

        I even saved it to an rtf so I won’t loose it.

        There have been times I’ve thought, I should ask WTKTT if he has a complete timeline somewhere that he’d be interested in sharing.

        Once Eric was no longer in a position to see the fire, that role got switched to Cory Ball, whether there was a conversation about it or not. Unfortunately even HE was not in a position to keep “eyes on the fire on the mountain, all the time” but he did try. That’s what his photos from Musser’s truck were. Looking at the fire.

        Maybe he was even sending those images to somebody.

        Another thought that also came to mind while I was reading this was how kind of weird it was that Gary Cordes waited until chaos was totally in the rule and his troops had “finished” fleeing Harper Canyon to request Esquibel to send an engine to the Boulder Springs Ranch.

        I know I know I know, his task force was busy. But it just seems that if he and Musser could have figured out they needed to pre-plan an ATV for Ball as early as I think they must have had to, they could have also figured out they needed to pre-plan transportation for GM a bit earlier, also. All things considered.

        “They thought they had enough time.”

        Thanks, Gary Cordes.

        Reply

        • >> Marti said…
          >>
          >> I know I know I know, his task force was busy. But it just seems
          >> that if he and Musser could have figured out they needed
          >> to pre-plan an ATV for Ball as early as I think they must have
          >> had to, they could have also figured out they needed
          >> to pre-plan transportation for GM a bit earlier, also.
          >> All things considered.

          The fact that Cordes did NOT do what you are suggesting could actually be construed as just one more piece of indirect evidence that there WAS some kind of ‘plan’ in place… and that the point of Granite Moutain making it to the vicinity of the Boulder Springs Ranch was NOT because that was for a “dust off”… it was because that’s where they were supposed to GET TO WORK on something in that same vicinity.

          What we might be witnessing, with that radio conversation between Cordes and Esquibel, is the moment when Cordes realized that whatever ‘plan’ was in place and whatever ‘next assignment” had been in store for Granite Mountain was NOT going to happen.

          So only now… at the same moment all of Cordes’ resource were running for their lives in Harper Canyon and Shrine area did Cordes realize he better make sure Granite Mountain was getting off the fire as well.

          And he knew exactly WHERE someone should go and make sure they were getting off the fire like everyone else was.

          The Boulder Springs Ranch.

          Reply

          • You said:

            “it was because that’s where they were supposed to GET TO WORK on something in that same vicinity.”

            So, if you are correct on this (and I am understanding this), that this was in Cordes’ head……..

            ……then what was in Gary Cordes’ head (via, possiby Eric’s head) was that GM would be able to, relatively quickly, hoof it from the Boulder Springs Ranch, via that Driveway that led out from there to wherever “they” were imagining that dozer line that would be heading southwest from that place you have located earlier, down that draw would have met them.

            Yes, I can imagine that being a slide in both (or three) of their heads. And, thus, not necessitating a “pre-positioned” plan for any vehicles to have met them there at the Boulder Springs to safely pull them out of there – until everything went south into total chaos and Gary Cordes realized that was happening, and thus, requested his Strike Force Leader (Trainee) to send an Engine to the Boulder Springs Ranch to meet them and get them out “safely.”

            So THAT means that, by THAT time, Gary Cordes must have realized “The Plan” was basically toast, even though GM was heading down as a result of trying to fulfill it. and he needed to (finally) take responsibility for trying to get some kind of transportation over to them to get them (safely) from the Boulder Springs Ranch to some kind of, relatively speaking, safe (and, potentially after that, useful) place.

            Is that what you are “seeing” here?

            Reply

                • I find myself sitting here wondering, after all of this, when, exactly, Gary Cordes finally REALIZED that this “Plan” was toast.

                  And what “slide” he had inside his mind when he realized that.

                  All things (including all the – possibly un-necessary – wandering around that Frisby/Trew + the Three Prescotteers went through as they were trying to find them) considered.

                  Reply

    • reply to :
      Brendan described Marsh’s location as “above me up on the hill”.

      Correct. He was all over the top of that ridge above Donut we witnessed and photographed.

      Reply

      • Thank you, Joy.

        Quick question… do you know where the HELISPOT was?

        It’s that old cleared circle up there where Marsh was ‘hanging out’ most
        of the day that used to be the para-gliding club’s launching spot.

        Do you recall ever seeing Eric Marsh actually standing on this HELISPOT
        at any time that day?

        Reply

  67. Reply to Marti Reed post on June 18, 2015 at 4:17 pm

    >> Marti said…
    >>
    >> In that search I had come across your questioning about whether
    >> or not it might have been possible that Eric simply mistook
    >> Cordes’ radio communique on tac 1 that it was time for crews
    >> to get to their “designated places,” and thought that was either
    >> an “order” of some kind or a good way to justify GM moving to
    >> the BSR to Jesse Steed.

    IIRC, what I was proposing was that even though they ( Marsh and Steed ) certainly knew the ‘black’ was a ‘safety zone’ for them… the exact phrase coming over the radio to the effect of “Everyone go out to their pre-designated safety zones” would have meant THEY were supposed to now try to get to the “Boulder Springs Ranch”.

    By all accounts and testimony… that Boulder Springs Ranch is what matched that location description of “pre-designated safety zone” for THEM that day.

    It was Gary Cordes himself who gave it that label ( for THEM ) that morning.

    And YES… Eric Marsh *could* have then been using that as a ‘negotiating point’ for a reluctant Jesse Steed. Marsh could have been saying…

    “Jesse… you heard Cordes… we are SUPPOSED to get down to that ranch.”

    Maybe that WAS one of the ‘arguments’ Marsh was using… but Steed wasn’t buying it… which is why ( according to published media reports ) Marsh ended up just ORDERING Steed to bring those men down.

    Until someone tells us different… It’s ( still ) possible.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> And I found myself thinking, hmmmmmmmm, maybe? Maybe there
    >> really wasn’t any “plan” communicated to Eric/GM to come down
    >> and help put in that dozer plan?

    Of course that is (also) possible.

    If we had the real story… we wouldn’t need to be trying to explain this complicated scenario and its multiple possibilities.

    If nothing else… I am still hoping Brendan McDonough can at least take these myriad possibilities off the table.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> And I went on that hunt just after I did a re-mulling over Musser’s
    >> 3:40-ish resource check regarding Granite Mountain, concluding
    >> that I, at this time, all things considered, have actually no idea
    >> whatsoever what that conversation actually included.

    That’s always been another “elephant in the room”.

    We can HEAR Musser “calling out” to Marsh in the Panebaker Air Study video. But that’s all we get. Just the PROOF that Musser WAS about to have a ‘conversation’ with DIVSA Marsh.

    But as for what Marsh and Musser actually talked about and what was actually said… the full story remains to be told.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> And all this stuff is happening so piled up at the same time that it’s
    >> hard to line it all out.

    Yes. It is. A LOT of things happened in a VERY tight timeframe and it doesn’t help that none of these guys ever seemed to have a frickin’ CLUE what time it was.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> I still think that for Cordes and Musser to start moving their pieces
    >> around that chess board (in the condition it was in) they most likely
    >> had to have started at least mapping it out on some kind of a napkin
    >> during that conversation that happened at 3:50 to 4 PM.

    Yes… but don’t forget that it was Eric Marsh himself who had to inform OPS1 Abel that the fireline had crossed the retardant line, and then also later was the one telling Cordes it had ‘crossed the dozer line’.

    So Marsh really was the “eyes and ears” for OPS1 Abel, OPS2 Musser and SPGS1 Cordes.

    They were RELYING on him to keep them advised given that he was “on the top of the world” and could see everything they could NOT.

    That’s why I was suggesting that if Marsh himself then said he thought he saw a “possibility” of an emergency dozer line that *might* help the fire go ‘around’ that subdivision rather than ‘through’ it…

    …I think BOTH active Field OPS ( Abel and Musser ) and the “in the bullseye” SPGS ( Cordes ) would have still been ‘trusting’ him and would have been all ears.

    All that being said, though… I actually don’t think Marsh even turned his binoculars to the southwest and towards Glen Ilah until AFTER he saw the “Big Dog” just walk up to that massive retardant line… and step right over it like it was a piece of string on the carpet.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> If the plan was being incubated first in Eric’s mind, even before
    >> he asked Frisby to come up to the ridge in order to SEE it, and then
    >> communicated to either Cordes or Musser before (or while) they met
    >> and, most likely (or not?) after the meeting with Frisby was toast, at
    >> SOME point there had to have been a contact point between either
    >> Eric and either/both Cordes and Musser.

    Yes. There wouldn’t have been much to the “the plan” if the DOZER hadn’t been able to be involved. So my guess would be that if the plan really did ‘originate’ with DIVSA ( with his “top of the world” view of things ) and it was then communicated almost simultaneously to OPS2 Musser and SPGS1 Cordes… then it would have been only SECONDS after that ‘communicating’ that the following happened…

    From Cory Ball’s (signed) Unit Log…

    “Structure group one assigns me and one other to locate possibility of dozer line to southwest of Yarnell.”

    It is still IMPERATIVE to know EXACTLY WHEN this event that Cory Ball has always been testifying to actually took place.

    That ‘assignment’ would have gone from Cordes to Ball over a TAC channel.

    Someone OTHER than Blue Ridge Hotshots sitting behind Federal GAG orders must have heard that same transmission.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> And I just looked again at Frisby’s notes and there are no big
    >> black magic marker lines around his description of Eric calling
    >> him and asking him to come up. So, either he didn’t know what Eric
    >> wanted to meet about, or he just didn’t write that. He actually never
    >> mentions ANY of the pieces of this plan.

    Correct. Even with that… I have still always just had this gut feeling that before he consented to eat dust for 2 miles at a critical time when he was really needed elsewhere ( as in, right where he already was ), that Frisby would have at least ASKED for some indication of what the hell required a face-to-face versus just talking on the working radios.

    Perhaps the bias on my part here is that given the same situation… I sure as hell would have asked that question.

    If the caller responded with “I can’t tell you. It’s a secret and I don’t want to talk about it over the radio”… I suppose I would have ‘eaten dust’ and gone up there. But not before at least ASKING what the hell was so important that the radios in our hands weren’t good enough.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> So…….I definitely think it’s POSSIBLE. I don’t see any thing
    >> IMPOSSIBLE about it. I also don’t think it’s IMPROBABLE. It makes
    >> a lot of sense. Whether it’s PROBABLE or now, I don’t know if we
    >> have anything to pin that with.

    Copy that. Until we (perhaps) hear more about this from Brendan McDonough, or anyone else who heard the same radio traffic he did, there is no “definitive” piece of evidence which leans towards the plan ( if it existed ) originating from Marsh versus Cordes/Musser ( or even Abel )…

    …but there’s nothing that rules it OUT either.

    The ONLY thing I would say that makes it more likely it originated with DIVSA Marsh than anyone else is that simple fact that Marsh was “on the top of the world” and could SEE everything ( including any/all possibilities for emergency dozer lines ) better than anyone else.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> And maybe nobody who could have had the time to figure out how
    >> to fit this thing into the glowing narrative, so they just put it in that
    >> envelope, and as things passed (especially the ADOSH investigation)
    >> sealed it. I seriously don’t think anybody wanted this to be available to
    >> that investigation, all things considered.
    >>
    >> Does that make sense?

    If by ‘this’ you mean any evidence they DID hear/have that there WAS this ’emergency plan’ in place and that WAS the reason they left the safe black…

    …I would have to say no. It honestly still doesn’t make sense to me why they would NOT have included that information in their own report.

    For the same “we want to protect ourselves” reasons you are quoting as their motiviation… I actually think they would have WANTED to publish any evidence they had that there WAS this plan.

    It went awry. People died. There’s no way to hide that.

    But I honestly can hear the lawyers advising them that at least admitting there WAS this plan to try and protect Glen Ilah would be better than trying to cover something like that up.

    I would think the lawyers would have been telling Arizona Forestry…

    “You might be able to shut the Blue Ridge guys up… but too many people knew about this plan including just a County Public Works employee running a dozer and everyone listening to TAC channel radio traffic. You might be able to turn the knobs on the “brotherhood” thing and keep most of these guys/gals quiet for a certain amount of time… but you’ll never keep this one ‘in the envelope’ forever. Trust us on this.”

    It might sound like I’m arguing that the same thing I think MIGHT have happened couldn’t have happened because if it did happen I can’t see why they wouldn’t have said it happened”.

    And I guess maybe that IS what I’m saying in a ‘cockamamie’ sort of way…

    But I’m probably also giving Arizona Forestry more credit than they deserve, methinks.

    Bottom line: I DO believe that if there WAS a last-minute emergency dozer line plan… it very well COULD have come FROM DIVSA Eric Marsh himself… and did NOT originate with Abel, Musser or Cordes. They might have only gotten ‘onboard’ with it the minute the guy “on the top of the world” was telling THEM he thought it could be done and he was willing to try it.

    Reply

    • I hate to go here but my feelings—-
      In the words of an old FMO that trained me.

      Marsh was fresh out of Collage a new and untested Division Supervisor wanting to make a name for him self.

      —–Bob never trust a new collage kid to know what the hell he is doing always trust your training and instincts —–And keep the dam kid out of trouble if he’ll listen—-

      A wise man who started in wild land fire in the late 30’s My Mentor for the first 6 years of my induction into Wild Land Fire..

      Reply

      • Reply to Bob Powers post on June 18, 2015 at 6:10 pm

        >> Bob Powers said…
        >>
        I>> a new and untested Division Supervisor
        >> wanting to make a name for him self.

        I’m not sure we have ever had an actual (accurate) COUNT of exactly how many times Marsh had ever been assigned as a DIVS on a fire… but it wasn’t many.

        So yes… for all intents and purposes… being a full DIVS on a big fire was still sort of ‘new’ for Eric Marsh.

        So you might be right.

        In addition to just being a ‘Type A’ personality who lived by mottos from his old college like “Esse Quam Videri”… the situation in Yarnell might have seemed like an ‘opportunity’ to Eric Marsh.

        I actually think kind of ‘Human Factor’ aspect to what happened has been discussed at length and even to the point where the motivation might have been the opposite of what suggest.

        It wasn’t so much to “make a name for himself”… but given the way this particular DIVSA assignment for Marsh had gone so far that day ( not well at all )… he might have seen an opportunity to “turn the day around” and make what was going to be a dismal performance as DIVSA into something better.

        A chance to “salvage the day”, so to speak, and turn defeat into triumph.

        NO ONE would have ever blamed Marsh or Steed or anyone on that crew for deciding to just sit in that safe black and watch that already-out-of-control firestorm just pass by for about 20-30 minutes so they could have SAFELY returned to town they way they came up.

        But apparently… that wasn’t something Eric Marsh HIMSELF wanted to do.

        As soon as he saw the fire burn through that retardant line and knew it was turning around and coming back the other way with a vengance… he might have turned his binoculars to the southwest, towards Glen Ilah, and thought he saw an ‘opportunity’ to do one last-ditch-effort down there to try and protect that subdivision…

        …and then it was “Katie bar the door”.

        He convinced HIMSELF that he had maybe 1 to 2 hours to pull something off ( since that’s the time range the Air Attack guy Rory Collins told him ) and suddenly a crew that had been “tools up” and just resting is now marching south on a two-track trail back towards town.

        Ultimately… the ARGUMENT was about that last final bad decision.

        The shortcut through that box canyon full of explosive fuel.

        But until that first MAYDAY hit the radio… or the other now-reported radio call from Steed to Marsh informing him “We’re not gonna make it”… Marsh still genuinely thought there was time for some more “Esse Quam Videri” that day.

        Reply

        • As a Fire Fighter with 5 or more years The safest Safety Zone is the Black
          with well over 400 Acers why would you move out of that to a unknown location thru a brush field with out a dam good reason. Every body move to there safety zones. My brain would have said I am in the best safety zone on this fire no reason to move.

          In the briefing Marsh was told about BSR he was also told

          OF COURSE YOU ALSO HAVE THE BLACK —-

          There was no automatic requirement to move to BSR not ever

          The Crew moved for another reason we have come up with severial .

          The one we are on seems to have some solid possibilities so find the missing link. that’s our challenge.

          Reply

        • “But until that first MAYDAY hit the radio… or the other now-reported radio call from Steed to Marsh informing him “We’re not gonna make it”… Marsh still genuinely thought there was time for some more “Esse Quam Videri” that day.”

          And Cordes and Musser were supporting that, every step of the way, apparently.

          Reply

          • And, to be perfectly honest, all things considered, including what Gary Olson wrote in his MOAB,

            I would guess that if Willis had known about it he would have, also. Given his mixed track record on this fire. And his narrative after it.

            There’s something systemic about this whole thing, in my opinion.

            Reply

        • You said:

          “NO ONE would have ever blamed Marsh or Steed or anyone on that crew for deciding to just sit in that safe black and watch that already-out-of-control firestorm just pass by for about 20-30 minutes so they could have SAFELY returned to town they way they came up.”
          ——————————–

          Gary Olson says
          JUNE 17, 2015 AT 2:33 PM

          We will probably never know who had more of an affinity for the limelight…Willis or Marsh…but I think they were both very attracted to it, therefore, I find it difficult to conceive that these two did not have a clear understanding by at least 4 p.m. that day that this fire was heading into Yarnell in a big way, and the event wasn’t going to be covered merely by just the local AZ stations in Phx, Flag or Tucson.

          And in fact, the video coverage was going to be all over ABC, NBC, CBS and cable as well by that time since Yarnell was national news. There were going to be glimpses of FF’s, possibly some closeups. And GM would not be among them. In a place that was their back yard. Nobody was going to be filming any guys way up on a mountain, miles away. And the clock was ticking.”

          Conundrum. In the Human Factors Arena.

          Reply

    • A question for Bob and Gary,

      If a plan were developed by Marsh, Ops or whomever to pull the crew off the safe black and down to the interface would you as Crew Supt’s make every attempt to have your buggies at you exit point, especially if you knew you were getting a new assignment?

      I can buy into all this talk that GMIHC was needed to help with the dozer line (firing) or just be in their “hip pocket” since they were totally ineffective with their original assignment, but the Shot crews I have been around always have a way of having their “buggies” at their exit point. I have heard no mention of the “buggies” being moved to BSR?

      Reply

      • That’s a good question I have always thought that McDonough was waiting for a call to meet the crew with the Buggies, when the crew got to a place where they could be picked up. It is also possible that the Crew was planning to hike the Mile or so to Glen Isla from BSR and go to work.
        McDonough contacted his Supervisors and said the vehicles were at the RHR and he would be ready to move them when they called. Or something similar to that.

        We really do not have any Idea how they planed to move from the BSR only that that is where they were headed. From there with out any other information we are stuck. without info from again McDonough.

        Reply

        • Good question, but no, I wouldn’t have. I never had any control of making arrangements for my own transportation once I checked into a fire.

          The crew carrier was parked in a lot of all of the other non essential fire vehicles and there is stayed until we left. If fire overhead wanted us moved in a vehicle, they arranged for that to happen through transportation as part of a plan and it might have been our crew carrier, but still, they would make that happen. But frankly, I was never on a fire that was being managed by Chaos as much as the Yarnell Hill Fire was.

          I have repeatedly used the phrase that many real fires are managed by chaos for the first 36 to 48 hours, but I think there is a distinction between that and what was going on, on the Yarnell Hill Fire. I was always used to “managed chaos” if that makes any sense and the YHF was “utter chaos” or “uncontrolled chaos” or “crazy chaos.”

          I really do think, at least I hope, the YHF was a true aberration, even for wildland/urban interface fire or WFF are in for some tough times in the future.

          And yes, I am on sabbatical, but I am still trying to stay up to speed and trying to respond to things directed to me so maybe I can still be of some help.

          Reply

          • I never fought a fire or have even heard about a fire that was as chaotic as the Yarnell Hill Fire. Maybe that is because almost an entire hotshot didn’t die on them, but I still haven’t heard of any.

            It seems like almost everybody on that fire was a free lancing cowboy who was acting as their own Incident Commander. People showing up who had not been ordered. People being ordered but by circumventing the dispatch process put in place to know who what where and when resources go to or on a fire. People walking off the fire line because they didn’t like their assignment or agree with their assignment or get along with others. DivA deciding unilaterally he was going to take a crew from Diva and move it to Divz without authorization or even telling anyone. Air Attack overriding a ground commander and dropping not once but twice on their burnouts. Abel and Musser switching jobs, taking on new jobs or reinventing their jobs on the fly. Having no plan, or last minute plans, or no briefings or poor briefings. Deciding structures and entire areas were not defensible and going ahead and committing resources to defending them anyway at the last minute putting firefighters at risk. Firefighters deciding when and where to park their own vehicles, and then relying on others to randomly decide to move them. Putting some dumb kid out as a look out and telling him, well good luck when he tells them he is in danger of being burned over. Selecting safe zones that were ridiculously inadequate for the fire conditions, Reassigning hotshots to engage in risky behavior at the last minute, find a place for a last ditch defense of the town with a cat line. Firefighters on the line randomly deciding to start evacuation themselves, other firefighters and residents. Last second evacuations orders that were no relayed in any kind of coherent manner with a logical plan. Arguments, in fighting, bickering, no written plan, no maps, no coordination, no cohesiveness…nothing good and everything bad. Ignoring critical weather forecasts. And most of all, a Division Boss lying on the radio to conceal his true intentions and independent free lance cowboy plan, whatever the hell it really was.

            Unbelievable…shocking…unprecedented based on my experience and knowledge of wildland firefighting tactics and strategies.

            I could go on and on if I put some more thought into it. So no, I have never been on a large fire where I drove my own carrier out to somewhere park it wherever I wanted and then decide I should move it or not, or send somebody to get it to pick us up or not.

            Frankly, the way that fire was management from start to finish was unbelievable, shocking, unprecedented, a text book example of the Ultimate Cluster Fuck., and the more I learn, the more unbelievable it becomes. I can’t believe that dozens of additional firefighters didn’t die on that fire along with hundreds of residents.

            We really got lucky on the Yarnell HIll Fire…it could have been really bad relatively speaking…we only lost 19 wildland firefighters, compared to what could have happened, we were really fortunate and we should thank our lucky stars. Now…I know that is hard to understand if you were one of the 19 who died or one of those who loved them, but it could have been so much worse.

            Reply

            • OK…now I am going beyond answering a question that was posed to me, maybe I am a serial blogger and I just never knew it before now.

              Here is a scary thought.

              Keep in mind that my experience with the Arizona State Forestry Division was BEFORE they faced historical budget shortfalls and draconian cuts to state agencies. And all western states from my experience fight wildfire pretty much the same way Arizona does, except New Mexico is even worse and California has always fought fire like the federal government does, like they can print their own money on demand.

              Except now, apparently even the federal government doesn’t do that anymore because getting something bought by the fire is now like pulling teeth and they guard their S numbers with procurement officers lives.

              And even though I do feel like I am not qualified to write a book about the Yarnell Hll Fire, I just thought of a good title for it, “The Perfect Fire Storm.” Not exactly original, but very true.

              Now…here is the scary thought for wildland firefighters and those who live in wildland/urbane interface zones. What if your future continues to meet at the crossroads of the perfect fire storm due to global warming and draconian budget cuts to firefighting agencies due to historic budget shortfalls?

              What then? More Yarnell Hll Fires? Is this the new normal?

              Reply

            • and worse of all…a Division Supervisor who was doing everything he could to break all of rules all of the time instead of just some of the rules some of the time as most hyper aggressive wildland firefighters on steroids do on a regular basis.

              Reply

            • Here is a scary thought.

              Keep in mind that my experience with the Arizona State Forestry Division was BEFORE they faced historical budget shortfalls and draconian cuts to state agencies. And all western states from my experience fight wildfire pretty much the same way Arizona does, except New Mexico is even worse and California has always fought fire like the federal government does, like they can print their own money on demand.

              Except now, apparently even the federal government doesn’t do that anymore because getting something bought by the fire is now like pulling teeth and they guard their S numbers with procurement officers lives.

              And even though I do feel like I am not qualified to write a book about the Yarnell Hll Fire, I just thought of a good title for it, “The Perfect Fire Storm.” Not exactly original, but very true.

              Now…here is the scary thought for wildland firefighters and those who live in wildland/urbane interface zones. What if your future continues to meet at the crossroads of the perfect fire storm due to global warming and draconian budget cuts to firefighting agencies due to historic budget shortfalls?

              What then? More Yarnell Hll Fires? Is this the new normal?

              Reply

            • Reply to Gary Olson post on June 19, 2015 at 2:11 pm

              >> Gary Olson said…
              >>
              >> …it could have been so much worse.

              TOTALLY agree.

              Reply

            • Thanks for writing this, Gary.

              It kinda describes my side of the see/saw I perceived us being on.

              And it also helps me think I’m not crazy.

              After I got finished reading the 2-part narrative timeline that WTKTT did such a great job writing up, and digesting it…………and writing my little “replies” to it, I just felt kinda sorta, in both positive and negative ways…..

              ,,,,,,,,,,finished.

              And, to be honest, as I went about my day, even more mystified than before.

              It’s like we’ve FINALLY gotten a WHOLE lot closer to discerning the answer to the still burning question of “WHY?” and, as I contemplate that possible answer, I’m just like …………………..

              Really? You’ve GOT to be kidding me.

              And then as it got too hot in my un-air-conditioned house, I collapsed back into my chair in front of my imac and started google searching, just wandering around all those wildland fire-fighting sites, and “leadership” sites, and “lessons learned” sites etc etc etc, looking for something that I just didn’t even know what it was I was looking for……….

              And I slowly started realizing it was just for something remotely relevant to what we see going on here, especially after the past seven days of non-stop, brain-numbing trying, again, to put some pieces of the puzzle together and actually succeeding.

              And seeing that it may be even worse than we had thought, and we had already thought it was pretty bad.

              And that that’s why I can’t find anything on all those sites that relates to this. All that training and leadership and safety stuff seems to assume SOME ground base of coherence that never ever ever even BEGAN to exist on this fire, until it was too late and finally a professional-enough IMT took it over.

              And I kept keeping in mind what you said about the first 72 hours being chaos but…………still……….THIS MUCH CHAOS???

              When it got too chaotic on the Thompson Ridge Fire (and it did) they pulled everybody off and waited it out, burned thousands of acres be damned.

              When it got too chaotic on the Jarosa Fire, they pulled out the initial attack crew immediamente!

              When the Slide Fire kicked up and started burning up those oh so beloved by everybody side canyons, they let it burn, even though we were all crying our tears all over the Slide Fire Facebook page.

              When the inversions made it impossible to fly air support they didn’t try to do anything that required air support to succeed. While they built their big box that required another 15K acres to burn to contain.

              Which everybody bitched and complained about because of all the smoke, which WAS awful!

              Because SAFETY.

              But what do you do with a fire that is being so totally mismanaged from the get go that it really IS an awesome miracle that ONLY 19 fire-fighters DIED.

              What do they teach about that on those leadership safety lessons learned high reliability organizations just culture etc etc etc websites?

              Especially when the precious SAIR for this fire doesn’t even have enough FACTS in it for anybody to actually learn what this fire is practically (even though it’s been/being muzzled) SCREAMING to be listened to and learned.

              Two years later.

              So, yes, I really appreciate someone like you and Bob finally seeing what WTKTT and I have been seeing and trying to document for so long.

              And yes, this does NOT in any way justify Eric and Jesse’s decisions.

              But when you’ve got an Operations Supervisor supporting and facilitating a dangerous and hair brained plan like this, when the Incident Commander has absolutely NO FRIGGIN CLUE what’s going on with his fire and the people on it, and NOBODY’s taking the weather warnings seriously (to the extent that Chuck Maxwell is biting his nails in Albuquerque, thinking he REALLY ought to intervene but that would violate SWCC protocols to the max), …………………………..

              So that’s why I’m even more mystified NOW than I was before we discovered this totally reckless plan and all it implied.

              And I still don’t even know what I am looking for.

              But reading this coming from you really helped.

              Reply

            • Gary,

              I absolutely agree with your statements. The fire was mismanaged from the beginning and to this day is continuing to be. Does anyone know if that team is still available ? Or was it disbanded after this tragic mismanaged cluster?

              Reply

  68. The latest PUBLIC Twitter post from Brendan McDonough, on his PUBLIC Twitter page…

    https://www.facebook.com/brendan.j.mcdonough/posts/483729775127219

    He seems to be trying to say something ( to someone? )… but it’s riddle speak.

    ——————————————————————-
    Brendan Mcdonough – June 16 at 10:13am ·

    There are men who are sheep hiding in a lions hide, they seem to fool many of there intentions. The lions hide will wear and tear, there true colors will show. You can not recreate the heart and spirit of a lion within a hide, within a image. A true heart of a lion will shine brighter than its hide and be louder than its roar. To all my lions out there, stay authentic, be true, and holdfast.
    ——————————————————————-

    Reply

    • Another PUBLIC photo recently published on Brendan McDonough’s PUBLIC Twitter page.

      Apparently, on or about June 7, Brendan was involved in what looks to be a pretty bad car accident.

      https://www.facebook.com/brendan.j.mcdonough/photos/pb.463942307105966.-2207520000.1434666506./480356785464518/?type=1&theater

      Two PUBLIC comments appear under this PUBLIC photograph…

      John Alexander – June 8 at 6:43am
      Glad you and everyone involved were ok! That was a mess for a while.

      Mark McDonough – June 7 at 4:51pm
      wow !! glad your ok

      Reply

      • The “Mark McDonough” who left that PUBLIC comment on Brendan’s PUBLIC Facebook auto-accident photo appears to be an Uncle who has been mentioned in the media several times and has posted Yarnell related things of his own on his own social media page(s)…

        The Prescott Daily Courier
        Article Title: Surviving Hot Shot member ID’d
        Publisehd: Wed Jul 3, 2013 9:27 AM
        http://archive.azcentral.com/mobile/articles/20130702surviving-hot-shot-member-idd.html

        From the article…
        ————————————————–
        Prescott Fire Department officials confirmed Tuesday the identity of the sole surviving member of the Granite Mountain Hotshots firefighting team.

        Brendan McDonough, 21, of Prescott was separated from the 19 members of his elite firefighting crew when flames overran their position in the Yarnell Hill Fire.

        His father, Scott McDonough, who is in Boston, posted a picture of his son in firefighting gear and said: “Good work in Arizona, son. Proud and glad you’re safe!”

        Scott McDonough also referred to the 19 firefighters who were killed: “ Prescott, Arizona. Those are his brothers, 19 that didn’t make it. RIP, God bless them and their families. Amen!”

        An uncle, Mark McDonough, of Brighton, Mass., shared a memorial picture for the 19 fallen firefighters that said, “In memory of Prescott firefighters. Prayers are with you and your entire family.” The picture shows a candle and a firefighter’s badge outlined with the words: “RIP Prescott, AZ –19.”
        ————————————————–

        Reply

    • Donut would make a good mine boss–Do what I say not what I do. True to what is Mr. Donut? A young man misguided for sure-fortunate to have survived indeed–but not considerate of the loved ones and friends of the deceased 19–he withholds what he knows from those who want to know what really happened to get those men off that mountain into a death trap.

      Reply

      • Obviously he is trying to say that HE is a “true LION”…

        …but I wonder who he thinks the sheep are?

        Anyone who tells the truth?

        Reply

        • Actually… isn’t he really screwing up this whole metaphor?

          As the story goes… isn’t it the LIONS who tried to dress up as SHEEP just to get past the herders and the guard dogs and into the middle of the sheep herd?

          Reply

          • In other words… in the Lion / Sheep story I remember… it was the LIONS ( and NOT the sheep ) who elected to use deception to get what THEY wanted.

            Reply

  69. **
    ** DID DIVSA ( ERIC MARSH ) HIMSELF COME UP WITH THIS
    ** APPARENT ‘EMERGENCY DOZER LINE’ PLAN FOR GLEN ILAH?

    First… before I get into this… a little housekeeping and some ‘catch up’.

    It’s been ‘crazy town’ here on my end of the fence for the last few days and it’s been all I could do to just keep up with the input stream and the new evidence that Joy and Sonny have been providing.

    If I have neglected to say “Thank you” enough to Joy and Sonny for all the communications and the material… that is why.

    I AM looking at all the material and I WILL have more to say about all of it.

    But I have been on airplanes again for days now and doing the “wall crawl” at airport layovers trying to find any frickin’ publicly available wall socket to use in airport terminals just to keep up.

    But I’m back at a Desktop PC with all relevant files and a reliable power supply.

    Second… an overdue note to Gary Olson…

    Because of my own ‘crazy’ on this end… I’ve just been having to pick and chose what to spend any time on or comment on.

    Regarding your recent MOAP…

    That was an amazing ( and hard-wrought ) summary of what were obviously a lot of communications from people that trust you and respect you.

    If there ends up no further litigation or witness testimony that ever comes to light on this… you’ve pushed the “Human factors” considerations on this farther down the field than anyone.

    There are about a million “Lessons to Learn” just from reading that one single MOAP post of yours. I hope everyone that IS in a position to learn something from all that DOES SO… and as quickly as possible.

    So BRAVO for ALL of that. I mean it.

    And I can assure you… if you ever publish a book… I will buy a copy.

    **
    ** “TOP OF THE WORLD”, ( MA! )

    So as we revisit this possible ’emergency dozer line’ plan and continue to apply ( as Marti so aptly described it ) “more steam to the envelope to see what might be inside”… here is something else to consider might be iniside this still-not-fully-opened ( but definitely REAL ) ‘envelope’.

    DIVSA Eric Marsh had the absolute BEST view of everything that was happening with the fire that day just short of the guys up in the airplanes, and OPS1 Todd Abel, OPS2 Paul Musser, and SPGS1 Gary Cordes knew that.

    Eric Marsh was at such a high elevation with such a good view of EVERYTHING that, for all intents and purposes, he might as well HAVE been ‘in an airplane’… and it’s inconceivable that DIVSA Marsh would not also have had his own binoculars as well.

    OPS1 Todd Abel himself told ADOSH that Marsh could (quote) “see the WORLD up there”.

    From PDF page 40 of OPS1 Todd Abel’s ADOSH interview, 8/22/13…

    Q1 = Dave Larsen, WFA / ADOSH investigator ( Rest in Peace )
    A = OPS1 Todd Abel
    ————————————————————————————-
    1741 A: Um, we talked about the weather, we talked about the monsoons that were
    1742 building to the north and the south of us.
    1743
    1744 Q1: North and south.
    1745
    1746 A: Yes. The one buil- and – and I said do you have eyes on both of them? And
    1747 he’s – you know – he’s up on this ridge, he can see the world up there.
    1748
    1749 Q1: Yeah. Right.
    1750
    1751 A: He says yep I got eyes on both, one to the south and one to the north.
    ————————————————————————————-

    So it is conceivable that at SOME crucial point here, Marsh had his DIVSA hat still firmly on and from HIS vantage point… he thought there MUST be some possibility of an ’emergency dozer line’ down there on the northwest outskirts of that subdivision that MIGHT still make the difference between the fire charging INTO the subdivision… or at least being coerced to go AROUND it.

    For all we know… this ‘idea’ that Marsh might now have had for some ’emergency dozer line’ to try and protect the Glen Ilah subdivision may have been the actual REASON he asked Frisby to come up for that second face-to-face meeting… and this ’emergency dozer line’ WAS going to be the topic of conversation had Frisby been able to get up there.

    He wanted Frisby to SEE what HE was seeing… and what the possibilities were to try and protect that subdivision given the observed fire progression.

    SIDENOTE: I have said this before but it is still inconceivable to me that Brian Frisby would have consented to such a hasty face-to-face meeting request, at such a busy moment for HIM, unless he had SOME idea what it was about or WHY he was being asked to ‘eat dust’ for 2 miles when he was really needed elsewhere. Nowhere in Frisby’s Unit Log does he give any indication that he did have even a “clue” what Marsh wanted to talk about that was so friggin’ important ( or secretive? ) that they couldn’t just talk about on the radio…. but I still believe he almost MUST have had SOME idea what that “eat dust” trip was FOR before consenting to it. Maybe if Brian Frisby is ever free to speak we could know more about this point.

    Anyway…

    The moment he heard that Frisby wasn’t going to make that face-to-face, Marsh could have decided he needed to get down there himself ASAP… and that really is the moment he took off to the south in order to get down into that BSR area as fast as he could.

    We really DO hear him sort of “huffing and puffing” as he was then having those GM intra-crew radio conversations with Jesse Steed as captured by Christopher MacKenzie.

    There really is no doubt that even while Marsh was still probing Steed for his “comfort level” about something ( like leaving the black )… Marsh was rocking along towards some destination ( like the BSR ).

    I’m not going to speculate as to what exact TIME Marsh have actually SHARED this plan for ’emergency dozer line’ with anyone else such as OPS1 Todd Abel, OPS2 Paul Musser or SPGS1 Gary Cordes ( or any combination of these individuals ).

    But it’s possible that he DID… and then ( hence ) the corresponding directives coming from Gary Cordes down in Yarnell for Cory Ball ( and “one other” ) to jump on this new emergency assignment to “scout dozer line to protect Glen Ilah”.

    So that is why Gary Cordes was (quote) “not surprised” where the GM bodies were found ( as he told even the SAIT investigators )… or why Gary Cordes would also tell investigators he “assumed they were headed to the Boulder Springs Ranch and that they had plenty of time to get there”.

    Somehow, at some moment, Gary Cordes himself was either ‘consulted’, or just simply ‘made aware’ that this WAS DIVSA’s ‘plan’ and that he was already coming down to execute on it.

    Remember… Cordes was ‘playing’ the role of DIVSUP down there in Yarnell but technically ( as the org chart goes ) he was still just SPGS and Marsh had “more stripes” on that fire than he did.

    If a DIVSUP has gotten a ‘plan’ into his head and wants to execute on it, it wasn’t even SPGS Cordes’ place to disagree with him.

    But regardless… if this plan was ‘originating’ with DIVSA… Marsh still needed Gary Cordes to be ‘onboard’ because Marsh was obviously going to need the DOZER to pull this off, and Cordes had ‘control’ of the dozer ( and DOZB Cory Ball ) down there.

    We KNOW this “scout emergency dozer line” plan never actually came together ‘down there’. We seem to see Cory Ball fully attempting to carry out this assignment from Cordes to “scout it out”… but then FAILING to accomplish that.

    We KNOW that the fire continued to ‘exceed all expectations’ from 4:00 PM on and whatever anyone thought was possible or that there might have been time for in the 4:00 PM timeframe was a moot point even just 20 minutes later…

    …but that still doesn’t mean ( circa 4:00 PM ) that this ’emergency dozer line’ plan to try and get the fire to skirt AROUND Glen Ilah wasn’t what people WERE actively pursuing from 4:00 PM onward… with every expectation that there MIGHT be time to pull it off.

    Okay… so all that being said… here is the obvious head-scratcher.

    If it really is TRUE that there was this ’emergency plan’… and it really is TRUE that it actually originated with DIVSA Eric Marsh himself based on the possibilities HE could see better than anyone…

    …then why are we still even GUESSING that might have been the case?

    In other words… if this really is what was going down between about 3:50 PM and the time of the deployment… then why would anyone be AFRAID to admit it?

    WHY would this now be the “Contents of the sealed envelope” that still might need to be ‘steamed open’?

    It seems like it really would just be a legitimate, valid ( and even an acceptable ) explanation for what was really going down on that south end of the fire at that time.

    I’m just not seeing WHY Arizona Forestry ( or any of its contractors and employees ) would feel that this needs to the “military secret” that needed to be suppressed and ‘protected’ at all costs.

    There would still be every discussion in the world to be had regarding the faulty TACTICAL aspects of the plan and the poor decision making involved ( which did, indeed, lead to a horrible tragedy )… but as for the actual legitimacy of the plan itself given what was known ( and even being observed ) at the time the plan was put into motion… I’m not seeing the NEED for ‘the plan’ itself to remain a “secret” at all costs.

    So that’s it for the moment.

    I just wanted to throw this possibility ‘into the mix’ as long as we are revisiting the whole thing.

    FWIW… it also doesn’t matter to me ( personally ) that we are just days away from the second anniversary. I think this whole aspect of the Yarnell Hill Fire is going to remain one of the primary mysteries to unravel no matter how long it takes.

    Even if we were coming up on the 10th anniversary… if all the facts about this were still not known I’d still be searching for more testimony, more evidence, and more ‘answers’ about even just this one aspect of this historic tragedy.

    Because “Inquiring minds want to know”.

    However ill-conceived and/or poorly executed… WAS there a ‘coordinated plan’ in place and being acted upon in the hour leading up to the tragedy?

    Or were Eric Marsh and Jesse Steed truly just “freelancing” at that point and managed to get themselves and all the men they were being paid to protect KILLED?

    Reply

    • A couple of thoughts Marsh was a Division Sup. They can suggest but don’t make the decision to change tactics. OPS and IC are responsible for that what you are suggesting is way out of the normal procedures’
      Marsh would have had to be talking with OPS and COORDINATING with Cordes.

      This would be a total change in Plans and out side his assigned Division.
      In the normal Fire world it would have had to have been authorized and implemented by OPS at a minimum.

      I do not believe this was a very well coordinated plan. It was a way to last minuet Hale Mary.

      But it is feasible the Crew was moving to implement it. It was just to late to work.

      Reply

      • Reply to Bob Powers post on June 18, 2015 at 4:03 pm

        >> Bob Powers said…
        >>
        >> Marsh would have had to be talking with OPS
        >> and COORDINATING with Cordes.

        If he was committed to the idea and executing on the plan… then that’s probably exactly what he DID do. We’re still just not sure WHEN he did that ‘talking’ and/or “coordinating”.

        Cordes’ testimony that he was not surprised in any way that they deployed just west of the Boulder Springs Ranch, and his instructions to Esquibel to send that engine to BSR and ‘check on them’ prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that CORDES was aware that’s where they were going.

        Hence… Cordes would have also known of “the plan”

        OPS2 Paul Musser is the one who had also ALREADY called Marsh directly wondering if he was still “committed to the ridge”… so if ( following that availability check ) that “plan” started to come together… you can be SURE that OPS2 Musser was aware of it… and ONBOARD with it.

        Besides… there is also the YARNELL-GAMBLE video.

        Whoever that was that Marsh felt compelled to “report back to” with regards to GM’s status and that they were “Coming from the heel of the fire”.

        …you can bet a fin to sawbuck that wasn’t just some Engine Captain.

        It is still a VERY short list of people whom Marsh would have even felt obligated to make that kind of ‘status report’ to… and OPS1 Todd Abel and/or OPS2 Paul Musser are still right at the very top of that SHORT list.

        Reply

    • Hey, WTKTT! You’ve been doing an amazing job, all things considered!

      And that’s a really interesting idea.

      I have to admit, it’s kind of funny because I just spent a chunk of time searching for “designated safety zone” in order to figure out where that whole thing fit into this whole thing.

      And I I discovered the whole discussion we had back in February that I had completely forgotten about (is this mind-numbing or what????), in which I had fitted it together that Gary Cordes said that he had heard that communique from Eric Marsh to Air Attack while Cordes and Musser were talking on the side of 89. i.e. most likely just before 4 PM.

      And in that search I had come across your questioning about whether or not it might have been possible that Eric simply mistook Cordes’ radio communique on tac 1 that it was time for crews to get to their “designated places,” and thought that was either an “order” of some kind or a good way to justify GM moving to the BSR to Jesse Steed.

      And I found myself thinking, hmmmmmmmm, maybe? Maybe there really wasn’t any “plan” communicated to Eric/GM to come down and help put in that dozer plan?

      And I went on that hunt just after I did a re-mulling over Musser’s 3:40-ish resource check regarding Granite Mountain, concluding that I, at this time, all things considered, have actually no idea whatsoever what that conversation actually included.

      I don’t know what to believe anymore except what I can see with my eyes or hear with my ears.

      And all this stuff is happening so piled up at the same time that it’s hard to line it all out.

      I still think that for Cordes and Musser to start moving their pieces around that chess board (in the condition it was in) they most likely had to have started at least mapping it out on some kind of a napkin during that conversation that happened at 3:50 to 4 PM.

      If the plan was being incubated first in Eric’s mind, even before he asked Frisby to come up to the ridge in order to SEE it, and then communicated to either Cordes or Musser before (or while) they met and, most likely (or not?) after the meeting with Frisby was toast, at SOME point there had to have been a contact point between either Eric and either/both Cordes and Musser.

      And I just looked again at Frisby’s notes and there are no big black magic marker lines around his description of Eric calling him and asking him to come up. So, either he didn’t know what Eric wanted to meet about, or he just didn’t write that. He actually never mentions ANY of the pieces of this plan (as far as I have been able to, with great difficulty, read).

      Did you ever type out Frisby’s notes? I though about doing it several times, but always never got that to the top of my list of priorities, knowing how long it might take.

      So…….I definitely think it’s POSSIBLE. I don’t see any thing IMPOSSIBLE about it. I also don’t think it’s IMPROBABLE. It makes a lot of sense. Whether it’s PROBABLE or now, I don’t know if we have anything to pin that with.

      Regarding this:

      “In other words… if this really is what was going down between about 3:50 PM and the time of the deployment… then why would anyone be AFRAID to admit it?

      WHY would this now be the “Contents of the sealed envelope” that still might need to be ‘steamed open’?

      It seems like it really would just be a legitimate, valid ( and even an acceptable ) explanation for what was really going down on that south end of the fire at that time.”

      I hear yah.

      The SAIR was absolutely tossed together in way too short of a period of time to do it justice. With a obvious bias to protect members of the Arizona Department of Forestry, the Incident Management Team, and any other relative higher ups.

      Which is why I said that as soon as Mike Dudley walked out of the room in which their interview with the four Blue Ridge Hotshots had taken place, he knew a gag order for them and any other Federal employees was in order, given how SCATHING their opinion of the management of the fire was.

      And that, at that time, was the only reference to this plan.

      Cordes and Musser were mum about it. So, apparently they were too excited about letting this cat out of the bag. As usual, the upper-ups were perfectly content with the narrative the SAIT was crafting that basically said three things:

      1. The fire was just so awesome and so unpredictable that it just blew everybody out of their zones.

      2. Granite Mountain made this inexplicable fatal decision on their own part, with no help or communication or pressure or anything with anybody in the outside world. A decision that would be forever unavailable to that outside world because it totally went with them into their deaths.

      3. Nobody actually did anything wrong, made any serious mistakes, or did anything less than innocent on this fire.

      OK I need to add a fourth.

      4. A HUGE problem on this fire was with radios and lack of air support.

      Oh, yes and a thing we really really need, in order to prevent this from happening again, is GPS units, in spite of the fact that Granite Mountain had at least four GPS units, the contents of which are in another sealed envelope in that locked filing cabinet along with any cellphone records that were probably gathered.

      Apparently the responsible overhead didn’t feel all that proud about this whole thing. So they didn’t mention it. And maybe they even felt something worse than not proud about it. Which might be something of a clue, all things considered.

      Including one of those responsible overhead people who, apparently didn’t use his absolute SURENESS about where GM deployed to help the SAR crew actually FIND them in any TIMELY way.

      And including another one of those responsible overhead who flies in fairly high places in the scheme of things and maybe wasn’t too keen on being connected with this OOPS.

      And maybe nobody who could have had the time to figure out how to fit this thing into the glowing narrative, so they just put it in that envelope, and as things passed (especially the ADOSH investigation) sealed it. I seriously don’t think anybody wanted this to be available to that investigation, all things considered.

      Does that make sense?

      Reply

      • Ack, serious typo.

        “Cordes and Musser were mum about it. So, apparently they were too excited about letting this cat out of the bag.”

        Should read:

        “Cordes and Musser were mum about it. So, apparently they weren’t too excited about letting this cat out of the bag. “

        Reply

        • Copy. I caught that on first reading.

          There is no doubt that during their ADOSH intervieww, Gary Cordes and Paul Musser were playing their own version(s) of “keeping cats bags”.

          The name of that game is…

          “If you don’t ask me the right question I don’t have to give you the right answer”.

          Reply

      • Of course, if anybody HAD had time to discover and dig into and fit this noble sacrifice narrative into their narrative, I am totally SURE they would have.

        Especially now that we FINALLY (two years later) know that that dozer operator didn’t get burned over.

        Another OOPS!

        Reply

      • I wrote:

        “If the plan was being incubated first in Eric’s mind, even before he asked Frisby to come up to the ridge in order to SEE it, and then communicated to either Cordes or Musser before (or while) they met and, most likely (or not?) after the meeting with Frisby was toast, at SOME point there had to have been a contact point between either Eric and either/both Cordes and Musser.”

        Possibly in that conversation between Eric and Musser that I have decided, given what has been written/said about it (i.e. I have NO CLUE what was actually in it), that happened right before Musser met Cordes on 89?

        I mean we really have NOTHING that actually substantiates the current narrative about that conversation.

        3:40 was when Frisby picked up Brendan and the meeting was toast.

        Musser was driving then. Just before Musser met Cordes on 89 at about 3:50, he contacted Eric to get a resource bead.

        He asked a version of “What’s your status?”

        Eric said, “Right now we’re committed to the ridge but I’m seeing this possibility/necessity of putting in a line down there. Right now we’re up here but Blue Ridge is down there. But they’re about to get overly busy, according to them. So maybe we should come down?”

        Given that we have NO ACTUAL CLUE what that conversation actually included, is this impossible/improbable?

        This was on a cellphone, right?

        And then Musser stopped on 89 and had a conversation with Cordes. In which they had to have, at least, given the timing, started mapping this thing out on “a napkin.”

        OK. This HAS to be nothing but a “conspiracy theory.”

        But it’s possible. And not improbable. And maybe it’s wrong.

        But it makes at least as much sense as the idea that they just wandered down through that bowl, all of their own accord, albeit under the influence of what Gary Olson has so eloquently described, with nothing much more in mind than getting to the Boulder Springs Ranch, without a clue what they would do after that (even as Gary Cordes was assigning Tyson Esquibel to send at least one engine to go there to make sure they got out of there safely).

        Reply

      • And I want to add that your idea that Eric Marsh had the best eyes on the fire of almost everybody, especially Cordes and Musser, who, basically had NO idea what was going on out there, was the thing that got me thinking most seriously about this.

        I don’t believe either Musser or Cordes had the SA to have conjured up this “plan” all by themselves.At least this quickly. And “surely.”

        Just wanted to add that.

        Reply

        • And, of course, as Bob Powers would remind us, none of this was actually “sure.” Much less “sure” enough to actually think it would do enough to be worth the assignment of any resources to it, all things considered.

          As he said, and I’m improvising, it was a piece of shit last minute hail mary garbage piece of “planning.”

          Which may also be why Cordes and Musser didn’t say a word about it and it was kept out of the “glowing” narrative of the SAIR and hidden from the prying eyes of the ADOSH.

          Reply

          • Why not say any thing—
            The plan was under Musser’s Direction as OPS he would be held directly responsible for the Fatalities. Since the plan was never really implemented or written down it was hidden in all the other crap

            No one is at fault—- as the SAIR would not say or identify any ones decision making as the reason for the Fatalities..

            Is not Musser being sued by the Families? I think WTKTT said something about him or some one else. It puts the State in a bad place if one of their Overhead at that level had any thing to do with GM’s move. Weather it was his plan or Marsh.

            And we are back to ADOSH and their findings.

            This little plan is so well hidden in the mess of shit that it would not be easily recognizable or any kind of the movement by GM being associated with it. unless Musser or Cordes said something about it.
            Cordes is to far down the chain to be sued for GM Fatalities. He was also not in charge of them.

            Reply

            • I totally agree with your take on this, here.

              Which is why I DON’T agree with WTKTT’s take on it.

              You said:

              “Is not Musser being sued by the Families?”

              I have to admit I don’t know the answer to this question, and I haven’t downloaded any of the lawsuits to be able to answer this.

              Reply

            • Reply to Bob Powers post June 18, 2015 at 6:00 pm

              >> Bob Powers said…
              >>
              >> Is not Musser being sued by the Families?

              Planning OPS2 Paul Musser was never a ‘named defendant’ in the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits.

              Only Field OPS1 Todd Abel was named.

              I believe that the lawyers filing the suits never fully understood that ‘Planning OPS’ Paul Musser really HAD jumped into the fire and was the SECOND fully functioning ‘Field OPS’ in the hours leading up to the tragedy.

              You’re never supposed to have more than ONE full-blown ‘Field OPS’ on a given fire… so naming Todd Abel was ( to the lawyers ) supposedly ‘covering the bases’ there at the OPS level.

              Here is a direct link to the original ‘wrongful death’ filing…

              http://archive.azcentral.com/ic/pdf/0627yarnell-fire-maricopa-lawsuit.pdf

              ————————————————
              Defendants;

              STATE OF ARIZONA, a governmental entity;
              ARIZONA STATE FORESTRY DIVISION, a subdivision of the State of Arizona;
              COUNTY OF YAVAPAI, a governmental entity;
              CENTRAL YAVAPAI FIRE DISTRICT, a governmental fire district;
              TODD ABEL and JANE DOE ABEL, individuals;
              ROY HALL and JANE DOE HALL, individuals;
              RUSS SHUMATE and JANE DOE SHUMATE, individuals;
              ABC ENTITIES I-X;
              JOHN and JANE DOES I-X.
              ————————————————–

              I’ve said this before… but just to remind… it is NORMAL for the WIVES of ‘individuals’ to also be named just because of how super simple-easy it is for anyone to transfer all their assets to their spouses.

              And you don’t even need to print the spouse’s correct first name… only the LAST name needs to match.

              Just JANE or JOHN DOE XXXXXX will do.

              >> Bob Powers also said…
              >>
              >> Cordes is to far down the chain to be sued for GM Fatalities.

              That is not the case.

              I’ve also said this before but to remind… Arizona is NOT one of the states in the Union that has passed its own ‘sovereign immunity’ laws for State employees.

              With a sufficient amount of proof of negligence… anyone can sue ANY Arizona State employee.

              >> He was also not in charge of them.

              Doesn’t matter. If the evidence points to a sufficient amount of provable negligence on the part of this Arizona Forestry contract employee which contributed to deaths in the workplace… he could be sued as a defendant in a ‘wrongful death’ proceeding.

              Doesn’t matter where he sits in the “pecking order” or in the “food chain”.

              Reply

        • Reply to Marti Reed post on June 18, 2015 at 5:10 pm

          >> Marti said…
          >>
          >> And I want to add that your idea that Eric Marsh had the best
          >> eyes on the fire of almost everybody, especially Cordes and
          >> Musser, who, basically had NO idea what was going on out
          >> there, was the thing that got me thinking most seriously
          >> about this.
          >>
          >> I don’t believe either Musser or Cordes had the SA to have
          >> conjured up this “plan” all by themselves. At least this quickly.
          >> And “surely.”
          >>
          >> Just wanted to add that.

          That really is the ‘essence’ of why I was just adding this option to the list of possibilities.

          The ONLY thing to ‘recommend’ this theory over any other as to where that ‘scout dozer line’ plan originated ( if not from Cordes himself ) is the “on top of the world” scenario and the fact that of all these men… Eric Marsh was the one who could have SEEN the possibilities.

          Cordes had scouted Glen Ilah and the BSR area the night before.

          It was DARK.

          Cordes even overestimated the actual area of the BSR by 10 times and said it was 20 to 30 acres, or some such ridiculous size.

          So that’s how WELL Cordes really knew the area in his head.
          Overestimating ranch sizes by 10 times.

          Paul Musser was absolutely CLUELESS.

          The ONLY time Musser had set foot in Yarnell was for that brief time that morning during the 7:00 AM briefing at the YFD fire station.

          Paul Musser had no ‘mental map’ of Yarnell itself… much less Glen Ilah or anything out towards the BSR.

          And Musser didn’t ever really have any concept of the DISTANCES involved down there… and how far away people were from each other.

          In some ways… that alone could explain the exasperation we hear in Eric Marsh’s voice when he said “They’re comin’ from the heel of the fire”.

          That was his obvious response to someone who seemed to be wanting to know why Granite Mountain wasn’t where they thought they should be yet, because that person really had no mental map of all the distances involved.

          So yes… if anyone was in the right POSITION to see if there was anything resembling a chance at putting in an emergency dozer line that *might* make the fire skirt AROUND Glen Ilah rather than go THROUGH it…

          …that person would have been “top o’ the world” DIVSA Eric Marsh.

          Reply

          • You wrote:

            “So yes… if anyone was in the right POSITION to see if there was anything resembling a chance at putting in an emergency dozer line that *might* make the fire skirt AROUND Glen Ilah rather than go THROUGH it…

            …that person would have been “top o’ the world” DIVSA Eric Marsh.”

            OK, I”ll toss in a little pebble into these waters, just to see if If I’m wrong. And you can roll your eyes into the back of your head in exasperation. Because I KNOW you have a vastly more complete set of timelines on all of this than I do, and I have to even keep searching, via Google, this website to find things that I have never even read, or read (or even wrote) that I have, by now, lost track of.

            So I’m OK with being embarrassed by asking this.

            Where do you think Eric was actually located during this?

            Assuming that our current general consensus is that, at some time, Eric was moving down somewhere near the Boulder Springs Ranch, where he may have “ordered” Jesse to bring the crew down (the “pull” theory), at a bit before 4:27 when he said “They’re coming off the heel of the fire.”

            Obviously he was somewhere “up above” where the GM Hotshots were (I guess) when he asked Frisby to come up and meet with him. Along about 3:30, I guess. When, we’re currently thinking he may have been contemplating the possibility/necessity of putting in this line.

            So, yes, at that time he was the penultimate “eyes on the fire.”

            But where was he when, possibily Musser was pinging him at about 3:40-ish, or when Cordes and Musser were “sketching the plan on a napkin” at 3:50-ish to 4:00? Is it possible that at that time he was down below enough that he no longer had that awesome view of what the fire was doing?

            I’m just asking for a friend.

            And, during the time Cordes and Musser were actually IMPLEMENTING that plan, is there any evidence they were actually in communication with him as he was descending lower and lower, while (I would assume) losing more and more of that awesome bird’s eye view?

            (Other than, possibly, something related to that 4:27 communication).

            Or were Cordes and Musser just assuming that whatever Eric might have communicated somewhere between 3:40 and 4 was still continuing to be reliable? Even while/after the fire was, ala Cordes, exceeding his/their expectations?

            As I write this, I’m realizing this may be a pointless theoretical set of questions. Given what was actually happening during that time.

            Reply

    • Thank you WTKTT, that means a lot coming from you. And if I ever find a publisher for my book and if you email me your real name and mailing address, I will be more than happy to send you an autographed copy!

      And yes, the MOAP summary was hard to write, thank you for recognizing that fact. It is hard to explain and as usual I am conflicted between my desire to give Marsh a man hug and forgive him because I identity with him and being angry with him for his arrogant disregard for safety at the same time.

      But in any case, the truth is important for us to ever be able to truly understand what went wrong and why.

      Reply

    • It is reasonable doubt that Marsh just freelanced. When Willis said protecting structures is what they do he gave us a hint as to what he and those in his rank and above expected–That Someone or Some urgently wanted them down there is in my jury box beyond a reasonable doubt. –it just remains until names are tacked on–guilty of……

      Reply

      • I don’t actually think Willis had any knowledge of this “Plan” or any influence on it.

        Except for the influence he obviously had, especially given what Gary Olson has written, on the inside of Eric Marsh’s mind.

        Which may have, indeed, been a factor in Eric possibly thinking about what he might have “seen” as being a possibility, wanted to share with Frisby, wasn’t able to share with Frisby (who might actually been able to talk him out of it), and then, when Musser called him, told Musser he saw as a possible necessity in order to make a hail mary last defense of Yarnell.

        Without even doing “structure protection.” Just dozer and handline.

        Unfortunately, unbeknownst to Eric at that time, there was no time to even begin to do that. Even tho Air Attack, at about 3:50, told him he thought Yarnell would be hit in one to two hours. Which could have seriously influenced Eric’s thinking about this “plan.” As in, “I think we could have time to do this.”

        Reply

        • I agree with everything you just said, Marti…

          …but here’s an interesting perspective.

          Let’s say that either Paul Musser or Gary Cordes ( or both at the same time ) got this IDEA that there MIGHT be time to push some dozer line out there near Glen Ilah to at least try to coerce the fireline to go AROUND the subdivision and not THROUGH it.

          Wouldn’t you think they would have at least CONSULTED with the guy who had better eyes on the fire than they did… from an absolute perfect position to say whether that ‘idea’ was even possible?

          As I’ve said before… for all intents and purposes Eric Marsh was almost an “Air Attack” that day… with that incredible elevated view he had of EVERYTHING that was happening ‘out there’.

          It’s basically impossible to believe that either Musser or Cordes would NOT have asked DIVSA Marsh if he “saw any possibilities” there near Glen Ilah once they realized that might be the only card left to play.

          And YES… regardless of anything Paul Musser had reported talking about with Marsh at 3:42 PM… they very well COULD have been having this “do you see any possibilities for defense down there by that subdivision” conversation with Marsh as he was travelling down Highway 89.

          I am not calling Paul Musser a liar… but we know for sure and certain that others never reported ALL of their conversations and/or things they knew they heard to investigators.

          Many were obviously “picking and choosing” what they were willing to share with the investigators… and Paul Musser could still just be one of those.

          Does the name Brendan McDonough ring a bell with anyone?

          Reply

  70. A Little Conversation Downstream
    ———————————————–

    Gary Olson says
    JUNE 17, 2015 AT 10:19 PM
    I
    didn’t even suggest it was a clue, I do believe however, it is an important aspect of the human factors concept. I think it great you and others are working on the technical details of the fire, and I think it is great I am bringing attention to the human factors side of what happened. And that is because I strongly believe ALL of the CAUSAL factors will be found in the human factors side of this story. But I hope you keep looking at the fire.
    ———————————————–

    Marti Reed says
    JUNE 18, 2015 AT 4:12 AM

    Gary and Bob~

    I completely agree with you about the decisions of Marsh and Steed, and their violation of every rule and common-sense principle in the “book” being the cause of their deaths.

    And I agree that the relationship between Marsh and Willis (and how that came to be – which I REALLY appreciate your bringing to light) and their relationship to the political machinery of Prescott (and the Prescott Fire Department), and how the local media would be playing that out being a HUGE set of Human Factors in this.

    Think of it as if we’re on a see-saw.

    I’m counter-balancing what you’re saying, not discounting it.

    (And yes, it’s interesting how Blue Ridge has avoided the limelight/media. When I was trying to find out more about the crew, including which faces belonged to whom, it was enlightening to me to find out how INVISIBLE they stayed on the Internet. I almost couldn’t find a THING about them, while all the other Hotshot Crews have been making YouTube videos about themselves for YEARS. But not Blue Ridge!)

    You don’t think what WTKTT and I have spent most of the past five days 24/7 trying to ferret out and describe is Human Factors? Are you kidding me?

    WTKTT and I are unsealing a carefully sealed and locked away, in some filing cabinet, envelope.

    There’s a REASON that envelope has been sealed and locked away in that filing cabinet. If there hadn’t been a REASON, it wouldn’t have been LOCKED AWAY.

    You don’t think THAT is Human Factors, just technical details of the fire?

    Are you kidding me?

    You are describing the swimmer. We’re describing the state of the water. I think the two go together.

    However, you have been able to ferret out more details about the swimmer (given your connections and perseverance, which is AWESOME) than we have been able to ferret out details about the water. After almost two friggin whole years.

    You don’t think that when I discovered Paul Musser’s involvement in this that that’s a Human Factor?

    Are you kidding me?

    One of the burning questions in everybody minds has, ALL ALONG been, “Did somebody ORDER/PRESSURE them into this?”

    And now we have, by relentlessly putting dots together, figured out that, indeed there was a PLAN that resulted in Eric Marsh answering a question addressed to him by SOMEBODY (quite possibly Paul Musser) with an answer (in something of an exasperated tone, I might add) of “They’re coming off the heel of the fire.”

    You think this is just technical and not Human Factors? Are you kidding me?

    I’ve been involved in Human Factors all my life! You don’t think I know them when I see them?

    And we have, by also relentlessly finding dots and trying to figure out how to put them together, discovered that Gary Cordes assigned his, somewhat feckless regarding some other things, Task Force Leader (Trainee) to send an Engine to the Boulder Springs Ranch to pick up the Granite Mountain Hotshots.

    When, apparently, NOBODY else on that fire knew where they were headed, or why, or how, or when.

    Even when they were all trying to figure out how to FIND THEM after they deployed.

    And that’s not Human Factors?????

    Are you kidding me?

    I guess I’m operating out of a broader definition of Human Factors than you are, even though your Human Factors focus has been total invaluable in this, and I thank you for it.

    And I’m guessing Ted Putnam has a broader definition of Human Factors also, all things considered.

    Especially given his refusal to sign off on the South Canyon Report, given his REASONS for that refusal.

    Namaste.

    Reply

    • There are a lot of Human Factors that ebb and flow from the Top down not always bad.

      GM had severial hidden, quiet, personal, funding and supervisor Factors that played in this
      Tragedy. More than normal.
      The Overhead on this Fire had some human factors in play for what ever reason that also contributed to the overall execution of the Suppression objective.

      Did those Human factors contribute to Marsh’s decision to move the Crew?

      Did Marsh move the Crew for his own reasons which Gary and others over the past 2 years have stated?

      Both are still valid questions that we have a few threads of proof to conclude there may be some fact here.

      The Plan being discussed is more complex if we are to believe it was hatched and a attempt to execute it was a last minute ditch effort.

      We would first have to go back to 1600.
      GM was the beginning of the plan they had to move to Glen Isla to tie in with the Tractor.
      So their move started first. I would insert with out a Safety plan to accomplish the move.
      LCES the 10 ETC. Based on what we are assuming was direction by Cordes.
      He did not move BR to that location because he was going to use them to Fire the line constructed by the Tractor with them. and use GM to Fire the New Line to protect Glen Isla.
      He needed 2 experienced crews to do that.

      Having said all that the plan was just way to late to accomplish and the winds changed every thing.

      Now we have a crew hung out to dry in a brush field. Cordes is frantic to get the dozer push in but its to late for that the fire is out preforming his plan.
      Is Cordes the one that told GM you need to hurry up? Seems possible based on what was happening every where else. His plan was falling apart and GM was trying to out run an inferno moving right at them.

      Cordes was trying to send a Engine to check on the Crew at BSR—–Evidence

      Cordes stated he knew where GM was—-Evidence

      Marsh was in contact with OPS by Cell phone most of the assignment—-Evidence

      Cordes was also in contact with Willis in there roll’s on the Fire—-Evidence

      BR un known to them were part of the plan involved in the other half of the Burn out, What did Ball Know about the plan after meeting with Mouser? There is Evidence here that need dug up.

      My review my have some Gray areas in it or may not stand critical assessment but I’ll thow it out there to digest and see where it takes us.

      Reply

      • Bob~

        I pretty much agree with everything you are saying here.

        One thing I don’t agree with, and was kind of waiting for WTKTT to chime in, because he has WAY better detailed overall timelines than I do. My timelines are just short little things on TextEdit pages about specific things. The rest is all in my head. I don’t have an overall timeline.

        You said, regarding Cordes:

        “He did not move BR to that location because he was going to use them to Fire the line constructed by the Tractor with them. and use GM to Fire the New Line to protect Glen Isla.
        He needed 2 experienced crews to do that.”

        By 4:00 the plan to burn out the Dozer line was toast. I think BR was, at that time, in his mind, so busy moving trucks and crews and whatever around, for him to have had much of any idea what he might want to do with them.

        And Granite Mountain was, obviously, NOT busy.

        There are only TWO verifiable anchor points (and one of them’s just a hint) for his plan connecting to Granite Mountain. Unless I’m missing something, which is kind of why I was holding out on answering you.

        The strongest and most obvious being Cordes telling Esquibel to send an engine or two to Boulder Springs Ranch to get GM safely out.

        The other (which is still just a hint) being that exasperated status callout from Eric, “They’re coming from the heel of the fire.”

        Which had to have been a response to somebody, and which was heard (by probably a lot of people, including, most likely, Paul Musser) when Musser was driving into the parking lot (and then parking there) of the Yarnell Fire Department, while Ball was photographing the fire while riding shotgun in the truck.

        But, also, in my head, this leads right back to that whole thing about Musser’s call to them asking about their status about 3:40 PM, right before he pulled up to talk with Cordes on 89.

        There’s been a great deal of contention about that. At this point, I am not sure exactly what he asked and what GM answered, all things considered.

        This IS earlier than his conversation with Cordes, where I think they began conjuring up what became “the plan.”

        At this point I don’t know what he was thinking. I’m not sure he wasn’t thinking he might want them to come down and be in his “back pocket,” after all. And then the conversation with Cordes possibly re-inforced that.

        And this is all speculation. Just trying to figure out which dots might possibly be connected and which dots for sure probably aren’t.

        And one of the dots that IS connected, most likely, is the dot that represents that sealed and hidden away, in some filing cabinet, envelope.

        If there wasn’t something somebody really doesn’t want us to know about in all of this, we most likely would know a lot more about it than we do, two years later.

        That’s my thinking anyway.

        Reply

        • My thoughts on BR came from the call to see if they could still Burn out the line
          from Musser. I believe .that is why I was saying they were still a part of the earlier plan and there fore committed to a seperiate piece of line. The GM crew moved around 4:05 so their may have been an earlier conversation that sent Marsh scouting to the BSR which would fit this plan that was being hatched.

          Mainly trying to dot the I’s and cross the T’s and see where it leads as you said my time lines may be off as well.

          If the plan was discussed with Marsh way before the crew ever moved which may be why he took the hike to BSR.

          Reply

          • Bob, the call to Frisby about whether there was still time to burn out the line was from Cordes and not Musser.

            We have two reference to it, Frisby’s notes and the YIN. I’ve posted that somewhere down below.

            I just perused Cordes ADOSH interview and didn’t see anything there about it.

            And I’m not sure exactly when it happened.

            I think I remember WTKTT said it came just about right after Frisby picked up Brendan and, at that point, knew, it was time to get everybody out and that burnout wasn’t gonna happen.

            Reply

            • So it probably happened around 3:40 ish, and before he met with Musser. So he knew that plan was scratched before he met with Musser.

              Reply

    • OK…you caught me peeking again on sabbatical, but going cold turkey is hard and I will get better over time.

      I guess I should have specified that I am focusing on human factors specific to Marsh and Steed. The aftermath of this fire is so complex, with so many people, so many unknowns and so many moving parts, that if I don’t focus on a narrow angle, I will never get a coherent chapter done for my book.

      Reply

  71. Reply to Marti Reed post on June 16, 2015 at 4:49 pm

    NOTE: Marti… this is that ‘scenario’ you posted yesterday but this breakdown is putting some actual TIMES onto it… which was a revealing exercise.

    With regards to the new photo 097.jpg that Joy has provided and which shows Cory Ball there at the intesection of Fountainhill and Lakewood… I’m now sort of conviced that it was taken more like 4:05 PM than 4:15 PM.

    You will see why below.

    That time of 4:05 ( versus 4:15 ) just seems to ‘fit better’ in the timeline.

    >> Marti said…
    >>
    >> So here’s another possible scenario.
    >>
    >> Ball and the dozer came down to the Sesame staging area,

    3:50 PM – Ball shoots his IMG_1884 there at the staging area.

    >> while Ball got the assignment from Cordes/Musser to, after he
    >> parked the BR truck/trailer at the RHR, jump into Musser’s truck,
    >> go over to the YFD,

    4:28 PM – Ball shoots his IMG_1886 as he is arriving at YFD in Musser’s truck.

    >> get on their ATV, and go back up into Glen Ilah.

    4:43 PM – Ball shoots his IMG_1888 photo. He has re-entered Glen Ilah on the ATV borrowed from the Yarnell Fire station and he is now at the intersection of Lakewood and Manzanita. Photo shows it’s too dangerous for him to go any farther west.

    >> While the message to Morin was “Just Stay Put.”

    Until there is some evidence that Dozer came out of there on its LOBOY trailer and staged somewhere else… we still have to assume this is what Morin was told and Ball was trying to ‘return’ to him out there.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> Which Ball did, then heading down Manzanite until he came to
    >> that spot where he got out of his truck to get a view of the fire
    >> (and possibly pass that on to Cordes/Musser, since they didn’t
    >> have their own “eyes on the fire”), at which point he was
    >> photographed (around 4:15 PM) looking up at that smoke column.
    >> Which was basically going up.

    Yes. There really is NO DOUBT this new photo 097.jpg that Joy has provided was taken in this timeframe… as Cory Ball was EXITING Glen Ilah with the Blue Ridge Chase truck with Polaris trailer attached.

    But the more I look at this new 097.jpg photo I believe it was taken more around 4:05 PM than 4:15 PM.

    That just fits the timeframe better given what happened just BEFORE and just AFTER it. A time of 4:15 is sort of ‘rushing things’ that would have to happen AFTER this photo such as delivering the Chase to RHR and then getting all the way over to the YFD by 4:28 PM when Ball would shoot that photo of himself arriving there in Musser’s truck.

    In other words… if the new 097.jpg really was shot at 4:15… that only gave Ball 13 short minutes to accomplish all that.

    Pushing 097.jpg back to 4:05 PM adds another 10 minutes and seems more reasonable.

    He ( Ball ) would then have had 23 minutes to finish delivering the GM Chase to RHR, conversing with Musser, hopping into his truck, and then arrving at YFD and shooting his next photo at exactly 4:28 PM.

    >> Marti also wrote…
    >>
    >> Meanwhile Morin waited, and then, getting a little nervous, all things
    >> considered, loaded the dozer onto the lo-boy, just in case.

    Perhaps. If he ‘hightailed it’ as you suggest below… this WOULD have been when he ‘loaded up’.

    >> Meanwhile, at the same time Cory Ball parked the truck, Musser
    >> picked him up and delivered him to the Yarnell Fire Department
    >> at 4:27 PM (the same time the Yarnell-Gamble video was captured),
    >> where he mounted the ATV and headed back up into Glen Ilah.

    Exactly… which is why I moved 097.jpg back about 10 minutes to 4:05 PM. I don’t think Cory Ball could have done the above ‘paragraph’ in just 13 minutes. 23 minutes seems more reasonable for all you just described… and I believe that IS what happened once Ball got to the RHR.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> Where everything was chaos. He made it up to the
    >> Manzanita/Lakewood intersection (at 4:47, according to his photo),

    Exactly.

    >> when possibly other vehicles may actually have been >> driving around in there,

    Which would match the other testimony relayed by Joy from the same witness who says Ball told them to “get the hell out” earlier while he was exiting Glen Ilah ( 4:05 PM ).

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> also, maybe even about by the same time Morin had said to
    >> himself, “F*** it, I’m getting outa here!!!” and had headed
    >> down, and they found each other (or maybe even not, because
    >> we don’t know that), and a bunch of people to whom Ball
    >> said “Get outta here, you’ve got ten minutes” (which was by then
    >> totally true) and then they both got back out of there and the dozer
    >> had to find some place to park somewhere in the traffic chaos
    >> somewhere around 89.

    I think this is the only part of your ‘scenario’ I’m going to take issue with.

    I can buy that at the same time Ball was re-entering Glen Ilah… Paul Morin had already said “F*** it” and was driving OUT with the dozer…

    …but I don’t buy that THIS is when Ball was telling the residents “you’ve got 10 minutes”.

    No way. Even Ball’s FIRST photo he took after re-entering Glen Ilah shows that it was already turning into a hell-hole.

    If Ball ever told anyone they had 10 minutes… I believe that could have only at the time the new photo 097.jpg was taken and we see him there talking to that resident at Lakewood and Fountainhill.

    THAT looked like a “You’ve got 10 minutes” scenario. The scene after he entered was more like… “Your 10 minutes was up 20 minutes ago”.

    >> Marti also wrote…
    >>
    >> And in the midst of all that chaos, nobody saw him (Morin)
    >> (maybe even Cory Ball) and as the list of MIAs was being
    >> quickly thrown together, his “dozer operator” got added
    >> to that list, because, well……….nobody knew and nobody
    >> had any radio contact with him.

    Hmm… hard to believe that HUGE Yellow LOBOY could have gotten past even Ball on Lakewood ( the only way out )… but I hear ya.

    I suppose its possible.

    There were, in fact, TWO ways in/out. Fountainhill ( north of the RHR ) and Lakewood ( directly across from the RHR ) If Ball/Morin had taken ‘opposite’ roads at the same exact moment to go in or out…. they COULD have accidentally ‘missed’ each other.

    >> Until someone realize Morin and his dozer were, actually, NOT MIA,
    >> and then Morin eventually got his NEXT assignment.
    >>
    >> This kinda sorta makes sense to me at this point.

    Well… it DOES make sense.

    And that’s why I wanted to reprint it with some TIMES showing.

    Everything was ‘doable’ within the known times given what photographic evidence and (now, thanks to Joy) eyewitness testimony.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> Only running it by Joy’s source can confirm or fix it.

    Yes.

    >> We still need more information.

    Yes… such as…

    1) When this Blue Ridge Hotshot was yelling “Get the hell out”… what VEHICLE was he using? Was it an aquamarine pickup truck with a trailer attached… or was he traveling on an ATV at that point?

    2) If someone really did see that big yellow LOBOY with a dozer on it coming OUT of Glen Ilah… WHEN was that… and did this person see where it WENT? Did it go out Fountainhill… or out Lakewood? Left or right ( north or south ) on Highway 89?

    Did it branch off onto Fountainhill Road and then bypass the Ranch House Restaurant ( and Lakewood entrance )… or did it actually exit via Lakewood?

    It’s actually TRUE that if the LOBOY went one way or the other ( Fountainhill versus Lakewood ) and Cory Ball was re-entering Glen Ilah using the ‘other’ entrance instead… then Ball could have easily ‘missed’ the LOBOY on that ‘other road not taken’.

    The rest of this post is just some R/D I was using to put the times into the ‘story’ above… but it does also have a few more ‘events’ in there such as the exact moment when Gary Cordes was telling either OPS1 Abel or OPS2 Musser that the dozer line they’d been working on all day was now LOST.

    Reply

    • ** THE SHORT STORY

      3:30 PM
      Ball shoots his IMG_1883 photo. Dozer still on Cutover Trail.
      Byron Kimball broadcasts his weather report.
      Outlfow winds expected to arrive. 40-50 mph. Fireline reversals.
      Marsh asks Frisby for second face-to-face.
      Frisby takes off west in Ranger for face-to-face.
      Brown takes off walking EAST on Cutover trail

      ** 12 minutes later…

      3:42 PM
      Brown does his ‘about face’ on the Cutover Trail.
      This is the exact moment when Frisby informed Brown that
      he had just put Brendan McDonough into the Polaris ranger and
      he was abandoning his face-to-face with Marsh and returning east.
      Frisby told Brown to get 3 BR Hothshots ready to help move
      GM vehicles out of the Sesame clearing, which is why Brown
      did his ‘about face’ and started heading back WEST on the
      Cutover trail ( on foot ).

      ** 8 minutes later…

      3:50 PM
      Ball shoots his IMG_1884 photo. He has ARRIVED at the staging
      area at the south end of the Sesame clearing where the dozer
      LOBOY trailer was staged along with the Blue Ridge Chase
      truck with the Polaris Ranger trailer attached.

      ** 15 minutes later…

      4:05 PM ( approx )
      Ball is exiting Glen Ilah with the BR Chase truck and trailer.
      He has now STOPPED on Lakewood drive a few hundred yards
      short of Highway 89 at the intersection of Fountainhill Road
      and Lakewood Drive. He appears to have stopped to ‘assess’
      the situation and look at the smoke plumes heading towards
      Glen Ilah from that clearing at that intersection. It is also now being
      reported by a resident that at this moment Ball is advising other residents
      at this same location ( in a panicked voice ) that they have
      10 minutes to “pack up and get the hell out”.

      ** 15 minutes later…

      4:20 PM
      SPGS1 Gary Cordes is heard telling EITHER OPS1 Todd Abel
      or OPS2 Paul Musser that Blue Ridge reports they have “lost that dozer line”
      This audio was captured ( with absolute time stamp ) in Panebaker
      Air Study video 20130630_161858_VLAT_split_2_EP.MOV
      +1:32 ( 1620.30 – 4:20.30 PM )
      (SPGS1 Gary Cordes): Copy… but the intel I am getting from, uh…
      Blue Ridge is that they have… uh… lost that dozer line up
      ( loud foreground voice obscures this part ) where we’d… uh…
      planned to do the (burnout??).

      ** 23 minutes later…

      4:28 PM
      Ball shoots his IMG_1886 just as he is about to arrive at the
      Yarnell Fire station riding shotgun in what appears to be
      OPS2 Paul Musser’s vehicle ( with a white hood ).

      NOTE: The 4:27 PM YARNELL-GAMBLE video was being
      shot by Blue Ridge Hotshot Ronald Gamble over in the Shrine
      Road Youth Camp at right about this same moment. This is
      the video where Marsh is clearly reporting Granite Mountain’s
      STATUS back to someone who had asked him to do so and
      Marsh said “They’re comin’ from the heel of the fire”.

      ** 15 minutes later…

      4:43 PM
      Ball shoots his IMG_1888 photo. He has re-entered Glen Ilah
      on the ATV borrowed from the Yarnell Fire station and he is
      now at the intersection of Lakewood and Manzanita. The area
      out around the Sesame Clearing area appears to be engulfed
      in flames as seen by the ‘orange glow’ in the distance looking
      straight down Manzanita Drive.

      NOTE: 4:43 PM is the currently accepted time of the actual
      burnover out at the deployment site.

      ** THE LONG STORY

      Cory Ball’s camera was a network connected Apple iPhone 4S,
      so the time/date stamps on all his photos can be considered accurate.

      Cory Ball’s photo IMG_1883
      Shows Yavapai County Dozer ( with operator Paul Morin ) on Cutover Trail.
      Date/Time Original: 2013:06:30 15:30:02 ( 3:30:02 PM )

      Next sequential photo.. 20 minutes later…

      Cory Ball’s photo IMG_1884
      Taken by Cory Ball at south end of Sesame Clearing area where the
      Yavapai County Dozer LOBOY was staged along with the Blue Ridge
      Chase Truck with the Polaris Ranger trailer attached.
      Date/Time Original: 2013:06:30 15:50:35 ( 3:50:35 PM )

      Cory Ball’s photo IMG_1885 is MISSING. Always has been.

      38 minutes after IMG_1884…

      Cory Ball’s photo IMG_1886
      Taken by Ball riding shotgun in a truck with a white hood ( most
      likely OPS2 Paul Musser’s vehicle ) and about to pull into the parking
      lot of the Yarnell Fire Station.
      Date/Time Original: 2013:06:30 16:28:16 ( 4:28:16 PM plus )

      17 seconds later…

      Cory Ball’s photo IMG_1887
      Taken by Ball from the same truck but now fully arrived in the
      parking lot of the Yarnell Fire Station.
      Date/Time Original: 2013:06:30 16:28:33 ( 4:28:33 PM )

      15 minutes later…

      Cory Ball’s photo IMG_1888
      Ball has re-entered Glen Ilah and takes this photo near the
      intersection of Lakewood and Manzanita looking NORTHWEST
      out towards the area between Sesame Clearing and Cutover Trail.
      Date/Time Original: 2013:06:30 16:43:16 ( 4:43:16 )

      NOTE: 4:43 is, in fact, the accepted time of the actual burnover at
      the deployment site… but the orange glow in the distance in this
      Cory Ball photo is NOT located directly over the deployment site.
      This view is looking northwest down Manzanita Drive from the
      intersection of Lakewood and Manzanita, and the ‘orange glow’
      seen in the photo would have been out there in the foothills
      that were EAST of the Sesame clearing area and SOUTH of
      the Cutover Trail.

      ** TWO PHOTOS MISSING?… OR WERE THEY VIDEOS?

      There are 30 still photographs in Cory Ball’s folder in the SAIT.

      They have the sequential numbers IMG_1873 through IMG_1904

      There are TWO sequentially numbered photos MISSING.

      IMG_1885 – Taken sometime between the one he took at exactly
      3:50:35 PM out where both the Dozer and the BR Chase truck had
      been staged at the bottom of the Sesame clearing area and
      the one he took at exactly 4:28:16 PM showing him riding in what
      appears to be OPS2 Paul Musser’s truck and about to arrive
      at the Yarnell Hill Fire station.

      IMG_1903 – Taken sometime in the 58 minutes between 5:50 PM,
      when he was still in Glen Ilah, and 6:48 PM when he was now
      north of Yarnell on either Highway 89 or Hays Ranch Road and
      apparently headed to the ICP at the Model Creek School.

      Other than those two ‘missing’ photos.. all the others are in perfect
      numerical order according to their sequential filename stamps.

      NOTE: It could also be that Cory Ball actually took VIDEOS at
      these two moments… and the sequential filename numbers were
      assigned to these videos. However… there are NO VIDEOS
      in the Ball folder, only JPEG still photos.

      The file extension .MOV would have been added to these two videos.

      Reply

      • I sure would love to know the story on that MISSING Cory Ball photo ( or video ) with the filename IMG_1885.

        It might have shown any number of things.

        It could have been taken at ANY moment between the time Ball left the Sesame clearing area to deliver the BR Chase to the RHR and the moment he was in Paul Musser’s truck and arriving at the Yarnell Fire Station.

        AND Cory Ball’s iPhone 4S was putting absolute trusted timestamps on all of his photos/videos.

        It’s actually VERY ODD that there are ONLY those two sequential photos/videos missing from his collection.

        Almost like it was ON PURPOSE.

        Reply

        • Me, too. BOTH of the missing files. I guess it would kinda sorta depend on when Cory handed them off to the SAIT and via what.
          There’s pretty much five basic scenarios I can think of.

          1. Ball was looking at them later and said, “those are total fail photos” and deleted them from the phone. Which people do all the time, except me, because it wastes battery power.

          2. Ball was looking at them on a computer later and said “those are total fail photos” and deleted them from the computer. Which even I do all the time.

          3. Ball was getting ready to burn them to something to pass them off to the SAIT and said, “those are total fail photos” and deleted them or just didn’t hand them off. Which I don’t think probably happened, if he hadn’t already deleted them before-hand. But that could have happened. It just doesn’t feel right.

          4. Whoever was working with them later, preparing them for distribution via the FOIA said,”those are total fail photos” and left them out. Which I also don’t think probably happened, all things considered, if they hadn’t already been deleted.

          5. Whoever was working with them later, preparing them for distribution via the FOIA said, “Hmmmmmmmmmmm. That looks like something we may not want the public to be seeing.”

          So I guess between those scenarios, there are two that are most likely.

          They were fail photos that Cory Ball deleted, or they were photos that whoever was preparing them for public viewing didn’t want the public to be seeing.

          He took pretty good photos though. It was just those few during his first ride into Glen Ilah that were really shaky because of the low light. And he didn’t delete them.

          I think he was pretty intentional when he took photos. And knew how to do it well.

          Reply

    • “With regards to the new photo 097.jpg that Joy has provided and which shows Cory Ball there at the intesection of Fountainhill and Lakewood… I’m now sort of conviced that it was taken more like 4:05 PM than 4:15 PM.”

      Totally agree. As a matter of fact, as I did the math, I figured 4:15 was the absolute LATEST time that photo could have been taken, and I was pretty much thinking it most likely was taken earlier than that. But I didn’t know if you had a REASON to pick 4:15 that I wasn’t aware of.

      “Hmm… hard to believe that HUGE Yellow LOBOY could have gotten past even Ball on Lakewood ( the only way out )… but I hear ya.

      I suppose its possible.

      There were, in fact, TWO ways in/out. Fountainhill ( north of the RHR ) and Lakewood ( directly across from the RHR ) If Ball/Morin had taken ‘opposite’ roads at the same exact moment to go in or out…. they COULD have accidentally ‘missed’ each other.”

      And I agree with that also. It’s really hard to imagine this thing just disappearing the way it seems to have just disappeared.

      Just had a thought. Maybe it WOULD have made sense for Morin to drive out via Fountainhill. Maybe there was less traffic on it. I mean we’ve seen all those cars pouring out of Lakewood onto 89. And, apparently, most everybody going in was going in on Lakewood also.

      But, this is all speculation. Truly, without more specific details, along the lines of your questions (and thanks for doing that), we can spin our wheels on this puzzle-piece til the cows come home.

      Somehow Ball lost track of him, and nobody had the info to fix that before he/Brian/whomever notified DPS. I think they must have been pretty worried, and better to be safe than sorry.

      Reply

      • >> Marti said…
        >>
        >> Just had a thought. Maybe it WOULD have made sense for Morin
        >> to drive out via Fountainhill. Maybe there was less traffic on it. I
        >> mean we’ve seen all those cars pouring out of Lakewood onto 89.
        >> And, apparently, most everybody going in was going in on Lakewood also.

        Yes. The ‘traffic’ could have affected his ( Morin’s ) choice about whether to take Fountahill or Lakewood for that final leg out of Glen Ilah…

        …but here’s another VERY practical reason why he might have chose Fountainhill instead of Lakewood ( and, hence, ‘crossed paths’ with Ball coming back in on Lakewood and that’s how they actually ‘missed’ each other ).

        If Paul Morin was heading NORTH… perhaps all the way to the ICP where they had been requesting him to come, anyway, earlier in the afternoon… then as he came EAST on Lakewood taking the northerly shortcut to Highway 89 via Fountainhill would have made perfect sense.

        It simply would have been ‘more direct’ for him to do THAT ( if he KNEW he was going to go north )… and it actually would have been an EASIER ‘left turn’ onto Highway 89 for him and that rig than trying to make a similar left turn onto Highway 89 from Lakewood.

        Has to do with the ANGLE in which these roads actually meet Highway 89.

        Left off of Fountainhill would have been MUCH easier for him, in that rig.

        Reply

  72. Gary Olson wrote down below about how he thought concerns about the media coverage of Granite Mountain IHC sitting it out in their Safe Zone while Yarnell burned might have been a serious contributing factor to Granite Mountain IHC going down into that bowl full of exposives to “save” Yarnell.

    After posting a series of replies to that about my cynical disagreement with that, I finally ended up with this, which I really hope Gary (and everybody else) reads:
    ———————————————————
    Gary Olson says
    JUNE 17, 2015 AT 2:33 PM

    I think this could be one more reason why the GMIHC headed for Yarnell in addition to all of the other reasons that we know about, but I would like to know what you think if anyone cares to comment on the thought.

    ———————————————————

    Marti Reed says
    JUNE 17, 2015 AT 6:37 PM

    It’s about a Plan.

    That included a Dozer. And a Blue Ridge Hotshot that was the Dozer Boss.

    And a request to a relatively problematic Task Force Leader Trainee to send an engine to the Boulder Springs Ranch to meet the Granite Mountain Hotshots there.

    A plan that was conjured up and, at least, initially implemented by a Structure Protection Group Supervisor and an Operations Supervisor.

    That resulted in:

    “They’re coming off the heel of the fire.”

    Reply

  73. I want to get this out there before my self imposed exile/sabbatical from this thread starts tonight at midnight.

    After thinking about it for several days, I think the biggest take-a-way from the Marsh substance abuse incident on the Clear Creek Fire is what it means to me about Marsh and not about Willis. I now view the contribution that Willis made to this tragedy to be a contributing factor and not a causal factor since regardless of what Willis said to Marsh or what he expected from him, Marsh had an obligations and a duty to protect his crew from all overhead and that included Willis.

    And those take-a-way’s are as follows;

    1. The use of an illegal substance (marijuana) and banned a substance (alcohol) on the fire line by Marsh and other Globe Hotshots he was supervising point to a blatant disregard for wildland firefighter safety by Marsh. It is highly unlikely that was the either first or the last time Marsh actively demonstrated such a shocking disregard for wildland firefighter safety.

    2. The use of an illegal substance (marijuana) and banned a substance (alcohol) on the fire line by Marsh and other Globe Hotshots he was supervising are a blatant example of how Marsh believed he was special and that somehow the rules did not apply to him. Marsh also acted out and demonstrated his obvious belief that the rules did not apply to him. It is highly unlikely that was the either first or the last time Marsh actively demonstrated such a shocking disregard for the rules that are in place to help protect wildland firefighters from their own acts and the actions of others.

    Reply

  74. Dear Elizabeth Nowicki:

    I think you know just how much I have always liked and respected you and others of your noble profession…attorneys-at-law. A few days ago, I missed taking my meds for 2 days in a row and I suffered a critical break down in good judgment and common sense. I want to sincerely apologize for my harsh and totally inaccurate words regarding you and other lawyers. I am very ashamed of myself. In fact, if I had a sword, I would fall on it, it’s probably a good thing I don’t own one.

    I am going to take this rebuke as a call to redouble my efforts to go on a sabbatical from this thread because I am obviously not worthy to post along beside people who put so much thought and hard work into their comments. Therefore, I also want to say how sorry I am for my inexcusable behavior to everyone who reads or post to this blog.

    Sincerely Yours, Gary L. Olson

    Reply

    • “because I am obviously not worthy to post along beside people who put so much thought and hard work into their comments.”

      LOL!!

      I totally don’t even remotely agree with that!!!!!

      (Even when we disagree).

      Hope you had WTKTT’s “tongue in cheek” emoji in mind when you posted that!

      Reply

      • Right on Marti–Gary is one of the prime players in solving this who done it and why. Gary’s credentials over ride any impatience toward those that are intentionally trying to create a disruption and diversion. Some we have talked to want nothing less than to have this site completely shut down and would go to almost any length to do that. I wonder who Ms. Norwicki works for considering the obvious delight she has in creating friction. We may never know that but she has emailed us enough that I am amazed at how she can change colors. Do lawyers become chameleons? Well our pet Iguana does change shades as well but not so drastically.

        Well let that Sabbatical be a short one–Gary’s input is refreshing and nothing like the freedom to call a spade a spade.

        Reply

  75. FYI – The following showed up a few hours ago.

    NASA is now involved in this previously announced all-out effort to come up with a new fire shelter.

    Just as with the other (previous) announcements like this… it is probably no coincidence that we see these kinds of announcements popping up right in the middle of when the Arizona Forestry lawyers are supposedly trying to “settle” with the Yarnell wrongful-death lawsuit plaintiffs.

    One of the stated DEMANDS of ALL of the wrongful-death plaintiffs is that this very effort be made to improve these damn fire shelters.. and not in the usual slow-crawl “Forestry Tech Time”… but on an ACCELERATED timetable.

    NASA’s heat shield tech could save firefighters’ lives
    9 hours ago – by Daniel Cooper
    http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/17/nasa-heat-shield-firefighters/

    From the article…
    —————————————————————————–
    NASA has teamed up with the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service to see if the agency’s heat shield technology could be adapted to protect people during forest fires.

    The partnership began after NASA’s Mary Beth Wusk and Anthony Calomino learned of the death of 19 firefighters during 2013’s Yarnell Hill Fire. The pair had been working on a new thermal protection system for future spacecraft that was designed to deal with the sort of extreme temperatures that forest firefighters deal with on a regular basis.

    The prototype is now going to be shipped to Canada, where a team from the University of Alberta will burninate the gear to see how it holds up in extreme conditions. With the data from these field tests, it’s hoped that NASA and the Forest Service can replace the existing technology in the very near future.
    —————————————————————————–

    Reply

    • Lets hope NASA works on how to filter out stupid. You read those signs “Can’t fix Stupid”. I think Dr. Ted Putnam has been working on that problem as was seen in the Yarnell efforts to control a fire that should have been controlled day 1 in less than three hours by my estimation and that by 3 or four men off ATV’s. Again question one to those elite firemen that sat on their asses rather than take care of an emergency situation would be the start of this. We know they could have and should have and knew right off the bat that it was an extreme fire hazard that ranked as high as you can get on the scale considering the conditions at the time. You can bet had there been someone burning a campfire on that mountain side they would have been there in a heartbeat.

      Second there needs to be and investigator go look at those photos and witnesses to two ATV’s that are time stamped and showing in a long distance photo of that. Are those people just liars that have the photos and are the witnesses just saying something to cause trouble?>Joy has the names of all involved there yet all she has ever got was a restraining order from Amanda Marsh hoping to shut Joy up about the fire and her efforts to make sense of it all. Yet she has continued to get photos, information FOIA’ and data where she can.

      NASA also should do what the young fellow who died at 29 after I hiked him up there. His name was Zack Ashoor and he was suffering asthma and on the Arizona State Respiratory Board. He defied me when I told him he could not walk to the fence and went down there anyway. He told me those were his friends and he would stand before any judge for his action to pay his respects. He was working an a system to provide oxygen to the men in a light easy to carry mechanism. I wonder if he had depleted lungs due to the Hike like many others here. Zack is indeed another hero.

      Reply

  76. We will probably never know who had more of an affinity for the limelight…Willis or Marsh…but I think they were both very attracted to it, therefore, I find it difficult to conceive that these two did not have a clear understanding by at least 4 p.m. that day that this fire was heading into Yarnell in a big way, and the event wasn’t going to be covered merely by just the local AZ stations in Phx, Flag or Tucson.

    And in fact, the video coverage was going to be all over ABC, NBC, CBS and cable as well by that time since Yarnell was national news. There were going to be glimpses of FF’s, possibly some closeups. And GM would not be among them. In a place that was their back yard. Nobody was going to be filming any guys way up on a mountain, miles away. And the clock was ticking.

    I think this could be one more reason why the GMIHC headed for Yarnell in addition to all of the other reasons that we know about, but I would like to know what you think if anyone cares to comment on the thought.

    Reply

    • I hate to say it, but yah know? I think it’s possible to disagree with that.

      I hate to say this, but I don’t think the burning of that little town wouldn’t have made all that much of a dent in the national media. Maybe Arizona, but not national.

      But maybe I’m just cynical.

      How much of a big dent did last year’s burning over of 300 homes in Pateros during the Carlton Complex make in the “national media”? And how long did that last? And how long did anybody (outside of either Washington State or the fire-fighter community even remember that?

      OK, I don’t watch TV. I followed that monster closely on Twitter, but not because it was covered by the national media. And I don’t think I heard much of anything about it on the radio which I listen to all the time.

      I have to admit, I don’t think “big media” was much in the minds of anybody on that fire. Because if it had been, I don’t think the management of it, especially after Bravo 3 realized it was going to change direction and roar into Yarnell at about 12:30 PM (but didn’t communicate that to anyone who mattered), and then, after that, everybody seems to have basically ignored the weather warnings (including but not even remotely limited to Willis and Marsh) seemed to be, essentially, SCREAMING get the crews off the fire and get that evacuation of Yarnell going ASAP. While, again, as this fire was treated like just some piss-poor excuse for a REAL wildfire, nobody actually really seemed to care because it was just Yarnell and not SEDONA (now THAT one really MATTERED)

      I seriously think, actually, that nobody really even gave a damn about this fire (much less any kind of media coverage of it)…………………………………………..

      ……………………………….until it was WAY too late.

      Reply

      • The burning over of Yarnell, Arizona, would have been a mere blip in the radar if it hadn’t killed 19 Hotshots.

        And, actually, to be honest, the burning over of Yarnell, Arizona, is STILL a mere blip in the radar.

        And, even more so, all the other crappola that happened on this fire that almost got a whole lot of OTHER people killed, also, isn’t EVEN a blip in the radar.

        I doesn’t even exist as a molecule.

        Reply

        • That is why I believe that neither Darrell Willis nor Eric Marsh gave one hoot about some kind of hugely bad media attention they would have been subjected to if GM hadn’t valiantly raced down into Yarnell to “SAVE” it.

          Reply

        • If the town of Yarnell had burned over while the Granite Mountain Hotshots sat up there safe in their safe zone (which crews do all the time, so I’ve learned) I don’t think much of anybody who mattered would have even known they were sitting up there in their safe zone.

          Even if THEY felt rather uncomfortable doing that, while applying their Situational Awareness to understand that that was the best place for them to be, especially given that their OPS had told them to DO THAT.

          Reply

          • I mean, what was EVERYBODY else doing during that time????

            Pulling off the fire and scrambling to their Safety Zone, the Ranch House Restaurant Parking Lot.

            Were they being all super-paranoid about how the national media would cover that? Apparently not.

            Reply

            • So, no, I don’t think this is “the clue.”

              But I think it’s possible that something else, perhaps more subtle, might be.

              Which is why I’ve been relentlessly pursing it.

              Reply

              • It’s about a Plan.

                That included a Dozer. And a Blue Ridge Hotshot that was the Dozer Boss.

                And a request to a relatively problematic Task Force Leader Trainee to send an engine to the Boulder Springs Ranch to meet the Granite Mountain Hotshots there.

                A plan that was conjured up and, at least, initially implemented by a Structure Protection Group Supervisor and an Operations Supervisor.

                That resulted in:

                “They’re coming off the heel of the fire.”

                Reply

                • A piece of the puzzle???????

                  Now we need proof or some thread of fact and we are back to—Blue Ridge—

                  Did the SAIR end with a protection of some Overhead
                  Or no body did any thing wrong 19 Fire Fighters died because of the weather and Radios.

                  At this point with all you know about Fire Fighting do you believe that???????

                  And we are back to DEATH FROM ABOVE—–
                  an ill conceived plan from a bunch of want-a-be Fire over head who never had a clue working for Arizona State Fire
                  Are we really that close???????

                  Reply

                  • Well…yes, I think this is one area where we disagree. You and WTKTT and others are focused on the fire and I am focused on the human factors aspect.

                    That being said, I keep in mind that there was tremendous pressure on both Willis and Marsh to prove their worth to the leaders in Prescott because the Wildland Division was on the chopping block.

                    And I have always thought from the very beginning that Marsh took his crew to the backside of Yarnell in order to look like heroes to the community there, in Prescott and all over Arizona to help save their crew from the Prescott City Council and the news media aspect is a continuation of that. So…

                    I am also unfortunately, a cable news junky because I keep it on in the background while I am working on my hobbies, websites and writing. And I remember the Yarnell Hill Fire differently than you do, just as I remember how the fires in Colorado Springs, Los Alamos and California are regularly covered by the national media and especially cable news.

                    Reply

              • I didn’t even suggest it was a clue, I do believe however, it is an important aspect of the human factors concept. I think it great you and others are working on the technical details of the fire, and I think it is great I am bringing attention to the human factors side of what happened. And that is because I strongly believe ALL of the CAUSAL factors will be found in the human factors side of this story. But I hope you keep looking at the fire.

                Reply

            • Nobody else’s program was on the chopping block like the Prescott Fire Department Wildlands Division and the GMIHC was, so no, no one else was concerned about generating positive coverage. I was a serial news whore in Santa Fe where we could stand out when I was a hotshot crew boss to help build our reputations as elite blah, blah, blah. And that was just to build our reps, not save our jobs.

              I gotta respect the way Blue Ridge does it, turning their backs on the media, but I don’t think that is the way to go to suck up to the tax payers with no risk, potential high return with no risk, who wouldn’t take that?

              Reply

              • Gary and Bob~

                I completely agree with you about the decisions of Marsh and Steed, and their violation of every rule and common-sense principle in the “book” being the cause of their deaths.

                And I agree that the relationship between Marsh and Willis (and how that came to be – which I REALLY appreciate your bringing to light) and their relationship to the political machinery of Prescott (and the Prescott Fire Department), and how the local media would be playing that out being a HUGE set of Human Factors in this.

                Think of it as if we’re on a see-saw.

                I’m counter-balancing what you’re saying, not discounting it.

                (And yes, it’s interesting how Blue Ridge has avoided the limelight/media. When I was trying to find out more about the crew, including which faces belonged to whom, it was enlightening to me to find out how INVISIBLE they stayed on the Internet. I almost couldn’t find a THING about them, while all the other Hotshot Crews have been making YouTube videos about themselves for YEARS. But not Blue Ridge!)

                You don’t think what WTKTT and I have spent most of the past five days 24/7 trying to ferret out and describe is Human Factors? Are you kidding me?

                WTKTT and I are unsealing a carefully sealed and locked away, in some filing cabinet, envelope.

                There’s a REASON that envelope has been sealed and locked away in that filing cabinet. If there hadn’t been a REASON, it wouldn’t have been LOCKED AWAY.

                You don’t think THAT is Human Factors, just technical details of the fire?

                Are you kidding me?

                You are describing the swimmer. We’re describing the state of the water. I think the two go together.

                However, you have been able to ferret out more details about the swimmer (given your connections and perseverance, which is AWESOME) than we have been able to ferret out details about the water. After almost two friggin whole years.

                You don’t think that when I discovered Paul Musser’s involvement in this that that’s a Human Factor?

                Are you kidding me?

                One of the burning questions in everybody minds has, ALL ALONG been, “Did somebody ORDER/PRESSURE them into this?”

                And now we have, by relentlessly putting dots together, figured out that, indeed there was a PLAN that resulted in Eric Marsh answering a question addressed to him by SOMEBODY (quite possibly Paul Musser) with an answer (in something of an exasperated tone, I might add) of “They’re coming off the heel of the fire.”

                You think this is just technical and not Human Factors? Are you kidding me?

                I’ve been involved in Human Factors all my life! You don’t think I know them when I see them?

                And we have, by also relentlessly finding dots and trying to figure out how to put them together, discovered that Gary Cordes assigned his, somewhat feckless regarding some other things, Task Force Leader (Trainee) to send an Engine to the Boulder Springs Ranch to pick up the Granite Mountain Hotshots.

                When, apparently, NOBODY else on that fire knew where they were headed, or why, or how, or when.

                Even when they were all trying to figure out how to FIND THEM after they deployed.

                And that’s not Human Factors?????

                Are you kidding me?

                I guess I’m operating out of a broader definition of Human Factors than you are, even though your Human Factors focus has been total invaluable in this, and I thank you for it.

                And I’m guessing Ted Putnam has a broader definition of Human Factors also, all things considered.

                Especially given his refusal to sign off on the South Canyon Report, given his REASONS for that refusal.

                Namaste.

                Reply

  77. So I thought I had downloaded the Blue Ridge GPS video, but I can’t find it either on my computer or online. Can someone give me the link for it, pretty Pleeze?

    Reply

    • The whole thing is sitting here on YouTube…

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8cEKBzlhws

      What is still fascinating is that when Frisby and Brown first left the Ranch House Restaurant parking lot in the Polaris Ranger… it seems pretty obvious they already KNEW that Granite Mountain had deployed somewhere out there just west of the Boulder Springs Ranch.

      The GPS shows them ‘probing’ and trying to find a way through Glen Ilah and out to the BSR itself.

      They never found the way to get out to the BSR.

      They actually never ‘probed’ any farther back than that same intersection of Lakewood and Manzanita where Cory Ball shot some of his pictures prior to this ‘ground rescue’ attempt from the ATV he had borrowed from the Yarnell Fire station.

      I still wonder, then, why they got ‘hung up’ checking out all those bladder bags back up at the anchor point when they gave up on the Glen Ilah access route and then ‘busted through farther north on Shrine Road.

      If they were so sure they needed to be looking for GM just west of the BSR when they first left the RHR parking lot… what happened to ‘distract’ them and then get stuck going back and forth all around the anchor point, about 25 minutes after that ‘probing’ in Glen Ilah?

      Did the ‘sighting’ of those bladder bags on the part of DPS Ranger 58 chopper make them think what they had been told at the Ranch House Restaurant was simply WRONG?

      We also still don’t know WHO told Frisby and Brown to start looking for the just west of the BSR… or why they were so convinced that’s where they should start looking.

      Did Gary Cordes tell them that’s where they should start looking?

      Or was it Brendan McDonough ( who was also right there with them at the RHR )?

      Reply

      • Is anyone noticing ( like I am ) that no matter where any conversation goes about what really was happening that day…

        …we always run into needing MORE INFORMATION from one or more Blue Ridge Hotshots?

        Reply

      • Thanks WTKTT! I wanted to download it and it wasn’t working, so I went to your version but apparently you have that blocked or something, and so I was THINKING somewhere it was on JDs Dropbox.

        But I just tried downloading it and, so far it seems to be working.

        Regarding your questions, I’ve ALWAYS wondered that, also.

        Which is why, given this whole conversation we’re having, I wanted to go back and watch it a bit more carefully. Because I thought maybe my thinking was wrong.

        I was assuming they went into Glen Ilah and went over to the southwest side of it, in order to get over to that big driveway into Boulder Springs Ranch. Which is where I’m also still thinking the dozer got entangled with the powerline.

        Well, it’s downloaded, and I have Trew’s notes open, so I guess I’ll go see how well they correspond with each other. He says they first tried to get in via Shrine (sure wish I could easily copy/paste from these but I can’t). Then they tried Lakewood, but it was too dangerous. Then they tried another route off Lakewood, but decided that was ALSO too dangerous. So then they go to Shrine again, and tie in with the Three Prescotteers.

        He then says, “We tell them about access and where we think the site may be.’

        Reading on, not only did they get hung up with the bladder bags, but they also went down all the way to the grader.

        He says this:

        “This is the area where they would have been had they been traveling in the Black like we initially thought.”

        They’re definitely being guided by the helicopter in stead of whatever thoughts they seem to have been having when they tried to get in via Glen Ilah.

        Maybe they thought the chopper could see better than then, so if the chopper said “Go there” they went there?

        Apparently they didn’t tell the helicopter where they had earlier thought the crew was deployed, it kind of seems to me.

        But, come to think of it, if they really thought the deployment was nearer Boulder Springs Ranch, why would have they tried Shrine Road first?

        Wait a minute, just found this:

        After they “punched through” off Shrine:

        “We punch it and make it through we head up the Dozer line and the tie into the 2 track and take that until we make the left hand turn up the 2 track to where we think they may be. I transmit this over crew to xxxxx at the staging area who relays this to the Medical Group leader (which has dismantled the Task force we had and builds something else altogether) [that’s Cougan Carothers]”

        So that description makes it seem to me that all along they were thinking the crew was deployed somewhere on the ridge or just down below it on that two track, where Frisby had earlier tried to clarify with Marsh is that was what they were heading down.

        So, apparently they DIDN’T think, much less, know Granite Mountain had not come down the two-track like they thought they did.

        Reply

        • So, looking at the GPS video, they get as far up as Lakewood Manzanita, and then take a road that goes west, and then try to go a little south on the southwest edge of Glen Ilah. But they never take the road that leads up north on the west side of Glen Ilah that then leads to the driveway of the Boulder Springs Ranch.

          And, remember, trucks and tenders were going in and out of that area all day, so it must have been pretty messed up out there.

          Interesting.

          They didn’t know where GM was deployed. I guess all that talking with Brendan with maps and all spread out over the hood of that red truck didn’t reveal anything.

          And, apparently, Gary didn’t add anything at all to that conversation, given that he was, apparently, the sole person on the fire who “knew” they were deployed somewhere near the Ranch.

          I knew he was busy, but one would think?

          Reply

          • >> Marti said…
            >>
            >> I knew he was busy, but one would think?

            Given the ‘radio silence’ following the deployment and the fact that no one could be sure these men weren’t still alive but in GRAVE need of medical attention…

            The idea that ANYONE there on that fire, either physically there at the Ranch House Restaurant staging where the actual ground rescue mission was being put together… or ANYWHERE on the fire… would NOT have been IMMEDIATELY offering up EVERY possible piece of information or actual knowledge they possessed to help establish the exact whereabouts of this crew and get them immediate medical attention…

            …out of any possible concern for their own hides or stupid jobs…

            is just… welll…

            Geezus. I don’t even have a word for that.

            And I’m talking about Gary Cordes, Brendan McDonough, Darrell Willis, and YES… even those 3 Blue Ridge Hotshots who had been moving the other GM vehicles.

            Don’t forget that in one of the additional 21 Aaron Hulburd videos that US Forestry had always been withholding from everyone legally tasked with investigating this incident… there is a RADIO exchange between OPS2 Paul Musser and Air Attack John Burfiend in Bravo 33.

            It happened maybe 10 to 15 minutes after the deployment.

            Musser asked Burfiend directly if he ( Burfiend ) had any idea where the crew was located.

            Burfiend could only GUESS.

            That means that even by that time… 10 to 15 minutes after the deployment… there WASN’T any ‘general knowledge’ about thier most likely location spreading around that RHR parking lot and to the members of the now-assembling ground team.

            That also means that if anyone there ( Cordes, McDonough, Hotshots, whoever ) did have that information… they were actually still CHOOSING to keep it to themselves.

            Like I said… if that really happened… I don’t even have a word for that.

            I mean has anyone really thought about what is going to happen here if Brendan McDonough testifies that he pretty much knew almost EXACTLY where they were based on what he had been hearing on the radio…

            …but he was NOT telling anyone what he knew THAT DAY… in THAT parking lot… at the EXACT moment when a lot of people were doing everything they could to locate them and get them the medical attention they might have desperately needed?

            Reply

            • Followup…

              While typing the post above I thought of a relatively NEW piece of evidence that has emerged related to this whole revisit of exactly what Frisby and Brown did at the start of the ground rescue mission… and whether they really had been TOLD exactly where Granite Mountain was most LIKELY to be found.

              But first… I need to say something.

              From almost the very first chapter of this ongoing discussion, one of my own personal “cannot fathom it” moments is this issue that anyone who might have had ANY relevant knowledge regarding the whereabouts of Granite Mountain would, somehow, have been choosing to WITHHOLD that information in the moments following the MAYDAY radio calls and during those huddles in the Ranch House Restaurant parking lot.

              That is still true for me.

              If someone was actually doing that… I would find it very, very hard to ever believe it could happen.

              That being said… here’s the NEW evidence related to this.

              In one of the 21 additional Aaron Hulburd videos that the US Forestry service withheld from all investgators… we have the AUDIO confirmation of what Task Force Leader (Trainee) Tyson Esquibel had always written in his Unit Log.

              That SPGS1 Gary Cordes had instructed him to send at least one engine over to the Boulder Springs Ranch… at the same time everyone was evacuating from the Youth Camp.

              The ONLY difference between Esquibel’s actual ( signed ) testimony and what we can now hear for ourselves in the audio capture of that ‘order’ from Cordes is that Cordes ALSO told Esquibel to tell whoever he sent to “Keep an eye out for (Division) Alpha” and “make sure Granite Mountain gets out of there safely”.

              Esquibel ACKNOWLEDGED that additional instruction from Cordes… and then said he would wait until they all finished evacuating down to the Ranch House Restaurant and THEN he would send this engine to the BSR like Cordes wanted him to.

              Gary Cordes acknowledged THAT with (quote)…

              “Sounds like a plan”.

              Only a few MINUTES after that radio exchange between Esquibel and Cordes… Jesse Steed’s first MAYDAY hit the radio.

              So now we have Tyson Esquibel himself standing in the Ranch House Restaurant parking lot… and EVERYONE’S first thought following those MAYDAY calls is…

              “Where the hell ARE they?”

              Are we supposed to believe that Tyson Esquibel himself didn’t IMMEDIATELY say to SOMEONE…

              “Wait a minute… Cordes just told me a few minutes ago to send an engine to the Boulder Springs Ranch and to tell that engine to “watch for Alpha” and “make sure Granite Mountain gets out of there OK.”

              “Somebody call Gary RIGHT NOW. He seems to know where DIVSA and GM were supposed to be”.

              Tyson Esquibel makes NO MENTION of either having that thought OR saying anything like that to ANYONE.

              Ditto for Gary Cordes.

              Cordes himself testified that it was Engine Captain Reyes who had to end up telling him that Granite Mountain deployed. Cordes says he never heard the MAYDAY traffic.

              Cordes even says when Reyes told him GM deployed… his first reaction was “Bullshit! They had plenty of time to get there!”

              And Reyes said “No… they got cut off. They deployed”.

              This was now still in the same timeframe while the ground rescue mission was getting organized.

              So even with Tyson Esquibel standing there and having just been told to send an engine to the BSR to “Watch for Granite Mountain”… and even with Cordes arriving there and having to be told by Reyes that GM deployed… but Cordes thought they were ALREADY THERE at the BSR…

              …the ground rescue team still, inconceivably, seemed unaware of where Granite Mountain might have deployed.

              It didn’t make sense way back when… and it doesn’t make any sense now even with the new evidence of Esquibel and Cordes having had that radio exchange just minutes before the first MAYDAY.

              Reply

              • Notice in the last post that I have purposely NOT mentioned Brendan McDonough and/or the 3 Blue Ridge Hotshots who had been moving the other GM vehicles and had access to the same GM intra-crew radio traffic that Brendan did.

                That’s because you can take McDonough and the Blue Ridge Hotshots and what all of them might have been hearing on the GM intra-crew and throw that out the window…

                …and STILL… given just what Gary Cordes ( and Tyson Esquibel ) had shared over the radio just minutes before Jesse’s first MAYDAY… there should have been every reason in the world for that ground rescue team that was forming to have immediately had a damn good idea where that deployment *most likely* took place… and where they should be looking.

                And that includes getting that same information that Cordes and Esquibel seemed to possess right up to the AIR SUPPORT, who were also now frantically looking for them.

                It didn’t happen.

                Upwards of 15 minutes later… we STILL hear OPS2 Musser calling up to John Burfiend and asking… “Do we even have ANY IDEA where they might be?”

                And Burfiend said… “Nope. My best GUESS is south side of the fire somewhere”.

                Reply

            • It is possible the Kid was in shock and he was in a total black out.
              It happens—-

              The discussion with out the specifics may have left the BR crew drivers a little confused as to where they were or where they were headed.

              Just my thoughts—I truly believe Frisby and Brown had no clue where they were and only where they had been.

              Reply

              • Reply to Bob Powers post on June 17, 2015 at 5:51 pm

                >> Bob Powers said…
                >>
                >> It is possible the Kid was in shock and he was
                >> in a total black out. It happens—-

                I suppose… but see the full followup above.

                What I was really trying to point out is that you can take McDonough and the other BR Hotshots and what they ALL might have heard on the GM intra-crew and throw that out the window.

                Just based on the radio exchange we can hear with our own ears between Gary Cordes and Tyson Esquibel just minutes BEFORE the first MAYDAY… there STILL should have been every reason for what Cordes and Esquibel seemed to know to ALSO have immediately been the same common knowledge for the now-forming ground rescue team.

                When Reyes told Cordes GM had deployed…

                Cordes said BULLSHIT.

                That’s how strongly Cordes felt that they had already had “plenty of time to get there”, as he told ADOSH he believed.

                Cordes thought they were ALREADY THERE ( at the BSR ) and that was why he had been telling Esquibel to send an engine TO the BSR… to make sure they got OUT of there.

                With ‘there’ meaning “The Boulder Springs Ranch”.

                >> Bob Powers also said…
                >>
                >> The discussion with out the specifics may have
                >> left the BR crew drivers a little confused as to
                >> where they were or where they were headed.

                Yes. We will only know for sure if Brendan McDonough ( and most likely the 3 BR Hothots was well ) was hearing enough information on the GM intra-crew to know the specifics of their location when he finally testifies under-oath.

                But again… throw Brendan and the BR Hotshots and whatever they heard out the window…and at the time the MAYDAYS hit the radio it would seem that both Cordes and Esquibel knew more than enough to tell people what the MOST LIKELY deployment location was. ( Near the Boulder Springs Ranch ).

                >> Bob Powers also said…
                >>
                >> Just my thoughts—I truly believe Frisby and Brown
                >> had no clue where they were and only where they
                >> had been.

                Here is what I would like either one to someday say about that moment captured in the Tom Story photograph when we see them actually launching on the ground rescue mission.

                “We asked all around the parking lot and on the radio if anyone had any idea where they might be… and we found out they were heading to the Boulder Springs Ranch, and Gary Cordes even thought they might have already been there since he’d already told Esquibel to send an engine out there to get them before the MAYDAY even happened.”

                OR

                “We asked all around the parking lot and on the radio if anyone had any ideas where they might be… and we found out NOTHING,. All we could do then was start GUESSING”.

                Reply

                • And, unfortunately, given what seems to have happened, it appears to me that your second estimate seems to have been correct.

                  Which actually, and in addition, brings back into the room the elephant called “the alleged argument.”

                  How can it be that there was this “argument” that, even Mike Dudley seems to think happened at the descent point and not the rest stop up above in the black, that various people “allegedly” heard………..

                  (…………………Bob Powers can you get back to your sources and ask this?)

                  ……………………..if even Blue Ridge had no clue where they were deployed and Brian and Trew thought, when they were headed out to find them, that they were deployed somewhere along that two-track heading down from the anchor?

                  Well, I guess, sitting here thinking, that it’s possible all these folks heard that “alleged:” argument and still had no idea exactly where it was taking place and exactly what “it” was about.

                  Maybe they all thought it was an argument about heading down the two track and trying to race back to the Sesame area. Which could actually, relatively speaking, make sense. Kinda Sorta. On both sides.

                  Getting across the “big bowl” would possibly have been a whole order of magnitude less dangerous than heading down into that hardcore chimney.

                  Although it still would have been quite dangerous.

                  But Frisby seems to have had, in his mind-“slide,” them picking their way through “the black” across the big bowl Which is why he seems to have thought that that was where to look for them.

                  Unfortunately, where GM went, there was no “the black.”

                  Not even remotely.

                  Reply

                • So, I guess to simplify what I wrote above, it seems that, just because some people “allegedly” heard “an argument” between Eric Marsh and Jesse Steed about bringing the crew down from somewhere into somewhere that ended in an order from Eric Marsh to do that,

                  ……..that doesn’t mean that whoever heard that alleged argument actually knew where it was taking place.

                  ……….i.e over a bowl filled with explosive fuels.

                  …………..including the folks that set out to risk their lives to try to find them.

                  Apparently, the ONLY person who, at least inside his head, KNEW where they had actually headed, and who may or may not have heard that argument, was Gary Cordes.

                  Who assigned his Task Force Leader Trainee to send an engine to where he was sure they had headed, in order to meet them there.

                  And who, apparently, never said a word about that to the folks trying to figure out where to send a Search and Rescue crew to find them. And neither did his Task Force Leader Trainee.

                  Even if that, all things considered, would most likely not have made any difference, whatsoever, in the outcome,

                  I agree with WTKTT.

                  I. Just. Can’t.

                  Reply

        • >> Marti wrote…
          >>
          >> Well, it’s downloaded, and I have Trew’s notes open, so I
          >> guess I’ll go see how well they correspond with each other.
          >> He says they first tried to get in via Shrine

          That statement in Trueheart Brown’s Unit Log has NEVER been supported by the GPS data.

          As soon as they launched on this ‘ground rescue mission’ from the parking lot of the Ranch House Restaurant… they shot straight down Lakewood in Glen Ilah.

          They did NOT “Try Shrine road first”.

          Only when they were done ‘probing around’ in Glen Ilah did they head up to the Shrine road and that’s where they eventually ‘broke through’.

          >> Marti also said…
          >>
          >> But, come to think of it, if they really thought the deployment
          >> was nearer Boulder Springs Ranch, why would have they tried
          >> Shrine Road first?

          They didn’t.

          That’s always been just some kind of misstatement on Brown’s part in his Unit Log.

          >> Marti also said…
          >>
          >> He says this:
          >> “This is the area where they would have been had they been
          >> traveling in the Black like we initially thought.”

          Exactly. That has always been double-proof that neither he nor Frisby ever thought, for one second, that they were “Headed to a ranch somewhere up north” like the damn Arizona Forestry SAIR document reported.

          Arizona Forestry’s SAIT was just “making that up” and INSERTING that THOUGHT into Brian Frisby’s head because it ‘sounded good’ and matched/supported their own pre-determined narrative.

          Reply

          • Gotcha, my mistake (as well as Trew’s)

            “That statement in Trueheart Brown’s Unit Log has NEVER been supported by the GPS data.

            As soon as they launched on this ‘ground rescue mission’ from the parking lot of the Ranch House Restaurant… they shot straight down Lakewood in Glen Ilah.”

            Reply

          • “Exactly. That has always been double-proof that neither he nor Frisby ever thought, for one second, that they were “Headed to a ranch somewhere up north” like the damn Arizona Forestry SAIR document reported.

            Arizona Forestry’s SAIT was just “making that up” and INSERTING that THOUGHT into Brian Frisby’s head because it ‘sounded good’ and matched/supported their own pre-determined narrative.”

            Exactly. However, I’m not referencing the SAIT. SOMETHING is there, I think.

            From the YIN (however bad it is):

            “B & T get in the trucks and bump them around. Cortis wants to know if the Rd to GM is an option, Eric says I copy fire is progressed to the buggies, Also going to make our way through out escape route. Brian asks are you in good black? Eric says “picking our way through the black to the rd in the bottom out towards the ranch” Brian thinks he meant towards the 2 track. To confirm Brian says, “the rd we came on w/ the ranger…affirm.”

            From Brian’s almost impossible to read notes:

            “I then headed for the Supt truck to refuel the Ranger. I met xxxxx there and I was called by xxxxxx on tac 1 and he asked if burning the two track was still an option. I told him no and that if it hasn’t yet it will burn over the track very quickly. He coped and xxxxxxxxxxx called and agreed with what I said and he said ware the trucks were parked was all black. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx”

            I’m wondering what’s behind all those x’s?

            I’m willing to bet this is the same essential conversation. Unless someone can tell me I’m off here, which I could be.

            Reply

              • Yep. That HUGE redaction there would seem to be what Brian Frisby REALLY thought…

                …and when Mike Dudley was working on the redactions he knew it was going to contradict the agreed-upon-fiction he and Karels had put in the SAIR… so it had to go.

                PS: When I say ‘Mike Dudley was working on the redactions’… I really believe that was the case.

                Dudley was the POINT MAN for the USFS in all this.

                When it came time to start REDACTING… I think that job fell to Dudley himself.

                No one knew better than Mike Dudley what was going to need to be redacted in those Blue Ridge Unit Logs in order to even try and make the SAIR look like a valid document.

                Reply

                • Exactly.

                  And my point being that I think that redaction is about this conversation between Brian and Eric about the route.

                  And I’m thinking this REDACTED conversation COULD have been what left Brian thinking GM WAS coming down the two-track that they had been using.

                  With or without any reference to some “ranch.”

                  Which is why I’m saying that, because of that conversation (whatever game the SAIT tried to play with it), Brian Frisbee DIDN’T “know” where they had deployed. because he thought they were deployed somewhere near the two track leading down from the east side of the ridge.

                  Fricken Us Forest Service.

                  Reply

                  • Here’s what I would believe.

                    As I stated above… it still remains inconceivable to me that any FF who had even the slightest inkling about exactly WHERE GM might have deployed would NOT have spoken up about it in those frantic moments when that was the most important thing in the world for the rescuers to know.

                    So I sort of HAVE to believe that Frisby and Brown were at least TOLD it was likely they were somewhere ‘out there’ to the west of Boulder Springs Ranch.

                    So that’s why they did NOT go ‘straight up to the Shrine Road’ and try to immediately return to where THEY though GM had been ‘coming down’ ( the same two track they went up on ).

                    But I think very quickly they discovered how absolutely difficult it was going to be to try and get to the BSR in the timeframe they were doing it.

                    So I believe they then decided to just ignore this ‘vague’ information about them being ‘west of the BSR’ and they fell back on their own instincts.

                    They ( Frisby and Brown ) might have still absolutely believed their OWN impressions that Marsh had been trying to bring GM down via (quote) “that same two-track that we came up on”.

                    I still very, very, very much look forward to the day when Brian Frisby and Trueheart Brown ( and all the other Blue Ridge Hotshots ) can speak for themselves about what they did or didn’t think, did or didn’t say, and did or didn’t do that day… with NO REDACTIONS.

                    Reply

                    • I guess I have to say, I just don’t know about that.

                      They just didn’t even make any serious attempt to “punch through” to the Boulder Springs Ranch via the route that was being used all day to get to the Boulder Springs Ranch by other vehicles.

                      It seems to me that if “someone” had actually really clued them in on that, they would have kept trying to do that, rather than waste time going all the way over to Shrine Road and take the long long way in.

                      Including wasting a bunch more time going down to the dozer and a bunch more other time going off to the bladder bags.

                      This whole circuitous route speaks to me that they, in fact, were never notified by anybody who shoulda couda have notified them, that the Granite Mountain Hotshots had, most likely, deployed somewhere in the realm of the Boulder Springs Ranch.

                    • And, yep, this:

                      “I still very, very, very much look forward to the day when Brian Frisby and Trueheart Brown ( and all the other Blue Ridge Hotshots ) can speak for themselves about what they did or didn’t think, did or didn’t say, and did or didn’t do that day… with NO REDACTIONS.”

  78. Well as I was checking this morning I found that there was a new posting on the–yarnellhillfireblog
    about the other blog namely us. at the end of there little statement they said something I had to forward here.
    ——-one of the people on our Blog has a criminal record.——-

    It also pretty much said the professor was not responsible for the things that were said on the yarnellhillfireblog . What a total BS Blog this is. The have never retracted their statement that Fred was suing JD and IM which never was true and they call us a GOSSIP BLOG—-

    They did not mention Gary’s name but he is now famous over there to.

    So who ever dose or dose not actually have a criminal record they will be naming you soon.
    That’s there style.

    Reply

    • I think at this point, all things considered, we should stick to our work and

      Not. Get. Sidetracked.

      They think its a game.

      I’m not gonna play.

      Reply

      • Oh I know it is a game they would like for people here to comment.
        just so they can attack back I have checked it off and on but I ain’t getting on there
        even if they attack me which they have already.
        Just thought some might be interested especially JD.
        They are now being careful not to name sites or people.

        Reply

    • Bob…are you telling me I have to apologize to Elizabeth and beg her forgiveness for being such an asshole and a loose cannon? Please say it ain’t so.

      Reply

      • Your asking me ??????
        I have not nor will I ever Apologize to the Black Widow. And I was close to you on what I said to her.

        Reply

        • Well…it was actually a rhetorical question just for fun. I did shoot from the hip again from a horse at full gallop…my bad.

          Reply

    • What good does it do to be famous if they don’t use my name…damn it!

      I know I said this a long time ago on this blog, but I had to care what everybody thought about everything for 35 years and now I am really enjoying not caring what anybody thinks about anything (except for my dear wife and the regulars on this blog and maybe a couple of other, but they are pretty much non judgmental)

      Reply

  79. This is gonna be brief because I’m not ready to write anything more than brief. Plus I really need to reboot, because my computer is getting really sloggy and hard to type on..

    But before I do that, I want to post a couple of tidbits.

    I was looking around at logs, notes, etc, and Resource Orders just to help get into my who was doing what during that time the dozer got tangled up with the powerline.
    —————————————

    Dan Philbin. From his Unit Log:

    20:40 [I think] Took over as Structure Group 2 in Yarnell. Bedded down water tenders Kept 1 engine up to Patrol and Secure. Assissted with getting Dozer untangled from powerline

    0800 Transition with Day Shift.
    —————————————-

    Dan Philbin from his ADOSH interview:

    429 Q3: Okay. All right. And then uh, the evening by 2030 you were a structure
    430 group uh, there’s Z – 2, probably 2 sorry.
    431
    432 A: Yeah. Structure Group 2 I took over for uh, Gary Cordes uh, go and get him
    433 some uh, sleep. He’d been working long hours. And so I went to go bed –
    434 bed him down. So he’d take over the day shift and I’d cover the night shift for
    435 him. And then once the Type 1 Team came in they kept me on for a couple
    436 more nights before I told them that I – I need to go.

    Apparently they didn’t ask him anything about the powerline entanglement. Even tho the dozer operator had been listed on the MIA list.

    But it would seem to me that, when Cordes handed off Structure Group 2 to Dan Philbin, that would have put Philbin “in charge” of the dozer. Unless something else was going on, which very well might have been the case, all things considered.

    And, OK, I’ll say what case that very well might have been.

    I have no clue exactly what the dozer was doing over there when it got tangled up, but it seems to have been about clearing some kind of access out to the southwest towards BSR and the deployment site.

    So that might mean Todd Abel had assigned himself the dozer and put Dean Stewart in charge of it as DozerBoss BEFORE the dozer got entangled. Especially since Philbin says he ASSISTED with dis-entangling it.

    There’s no resource order for Dean Stewart. Whatsoever. There IS a backfill resource order for Dan Philbin, who is listed as DIVS. Dan Philbin said he was a DIVS on Bea Day’s team.

    I have a listing of Bea Day’s team, but it is as of 2014. Neither Dan Philbin nor Dean Stewart are on it.

    So I don’t know whose IMT Dean Stewart was associated with on that day/night or whenever.
    ———————————-

    Two interesting things from Tyson Esquibel’s Unit Log:

    “1632 St Group 1 request (1) engine to Boulder Sprgs. TF2 request after regroup @ Safety Zone. St Group 1 agrees and will meet at Cafe Safety zone.”

    I had read that several times in the past and thought, OK. And so there it is. Just for the record.

    “1900 added E-287 + Phx WT 54 to TF2, resources doing sm burnout on E side of Hwy 89 around Cafe, other units foaming cafe and structures in vicinity, lots of ember wash.”

    So that probably explains what Joy saw going on.

    “

    Reply

    • And PS just for clarity’s sake.

      The entanglement with the powerline happened several hours later than the listing of the dozer operator on the MIA list.

      Reply

    • And also, adding to the confusion…………..Dean Stewart is a mis-spelling. His name is actually Dean Steward.

      And I think I’ve gotten closer to figuring it out.

      Dean Steward retired from CYFD in February, 2013.

      But I think was part of Tony Sciacca’s Team. He was in 2010.

      And, now, in 2015, he’s a Structure Protection Specialist on Mark Ruggiero’s Type One Team, Mark Ruggiero having inherited that team from Tony Sciacca, who retired from it at the end of last year in order to do full-time work on the Southwest Wildfire Academy.

      Actually, it looks like both Todd Abel and Dean Steward have been on Tony Sciacca’s team team for quite a while.

      Reply

      • I’m easily guessing either Tony or Todd just gave him a call. And he just came right down. For “whatever.”

        And, apparently, he may not even have been paid for it, by that time, all things considered.

        Reply

        • The first mention of Dean Steward in Todd Abel’s ADOSH interview says:

          “we were able to get a manifest from – from, uh, Brandan. Um, and
          2337 at the same time Jason Klasen calls me on my phone, gives me an address to
          2338 Helms’ place. Myself, Dean Stewart, Cougan Carothers and Steve Emery
          2339 start working out way back in here to go tie in with these guys. Um,
          2340 obviously, you can imagine it’s pretty chaotic in there. We get through and,
          2341 uh, go out to the ranch. Walk out there, you know, once again confirm that
          2342 we had 19.”

          And then:

          “Uh, gather everybody up to kind of start brainstorming how we’re gonna get
          2362 from here to here and the bodies from there to there. Um, we come up with a
          2363 plan to get a dozer in there. We pop that dozer line in. Probably 3:30 4
          2364 o’clock in the morning – maybe 4:30 it finally gets done.”

          Reply

          • Good catch, Marti.

            I hadn’t seen that before… that this ‘Dean Stewart’ ( Steward ), close friend and ex-engine mate of Todd Abel’s, was actually part of that group of FFs that first went out to the BSR and then on to the deployment site to CONFIRM the body count(s).

            There has NEVER been any official resource entry for a ‘Dean Stewart’ OR a ‘Dean Steward’.

            So here’s another totally off-the-radar person playing a significant role in the discovery of the Granite Mountain Hotshot bodies ( just like off-the-radar hires Jason Clawson, Aaron Hulburd and KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell ).

            If this statement from Todd Abel himself is accurate… then this ‘Dean Stewart’ ( Steward ) friend of his must have arrived in Yarnell pretty much BEFORE the deployment.

            In what capacity?

            And ‘hired’ by WHO… to do WHAT?

            Darrell Willis says he recalls for sure and certain that sometime later that night this “Dean Stewart’ ( Steward ) guy was the one actually putting in the dozer line to the deployment site because of how THEY wanted the Sheriff in and out of there FAST and how afraid they were they news helicopters would get any footage of anything the next morning…

            But if Dean Stewart ( Steward ) was ALREADY THERE in Yarnell around the time of deployment so that he could be one of the FIVE or so members of the “Granite Mountain Incident Within An Incident” management team… WHO asked him to be there… WHEN.. .and WHY.. .and WHEN did he actually arrive in Yarnell?

            You realize now that if you include this off-the-radar friend of Todd Abel’s ( Dean Steward ) in the list of firefighters that were actually at the deployment site and confirming the deaths of Granite Mountain…

            More than HALF of those actual FFs who where the first to be out at the deployment site and confirming the deaths have NEVER been interviewed by ANYONE.

            Indeed… these FFs weren’t even technically ‘there at all’, according to Arizona Forestry and their own reports and resource orders.

            I am, of course… talking about…

            Jason Clawson
            Aaron Hulburd
            KC ‘Bucky’ Yowel
            and now including Todd Abel’s close friend…
            Dean Steward

            As far as we know… the ONLY two Arizona Forestry employees that were actually first ‘on the scene’ out there who HAVE been interviewed by any investigator would be…

            OPS1 Todd Abel
            DPS Officer/Paramedic Eric Tarr.

            I am still just talking about “first on scene” here, and not the FULL list of FFs that might have been tromping around that site all night long before the YCSO detectives arrived at first light.

            Darrell Willis’ right-hand-guy in Structure Group 1 was that Prescott Engine Captain Cory Moser.

            Just before the first anninversary this Cory Moser guy was suddenly talking to the media and he’s the one who first reported that there were upwards of 30 to 40 ( THIRTY TO FORTY ) firefighters who were “hanging around” out there at the Boulder Springs Ranch all night.

            Moser says they all made a “pact” amonst themselves to never talk about what they ‘saw’ or ‘did’ out there that night.

            That, itself, has always been one big WEIRD BOMB.

            What in the hell is Moser talking about here?

            Are they all ‘Masons’ and they performed one of those secret Masonry ceremonies out there that night, or something?

            We KNOW that an unauthorized group of FFs did walk all over the deployment site that night and were ‘disturbing the scene’.

            They put TARPS all over the bodies because of how absolutely terrfied they were that a news chopper might get a ground shot at first light and before the YCSO detectives could finish their work.

            But we still don’t know HOW MANY of those 30 to 40 FFs reported by Cory Moser were ‘allowed’ to actually participate in this placement of the tarps or otherwise actually set foot inside the taped off deployment site area.

            Since Cory Moser saw fit to finally talk about this just prior to the FIRST anniversary… maybe this year we’ll get the followup segment and he’ll say what this secret ‘pact’ they all made was really all about.

            Reply

            • Whoops. Brain fart up above.

              Obviously DPS Officer and Paramedic Eric Tarr could NOT be considered an ‘Arizona Forestry employee’ that day in the same way OPS1 Todd Abel could.

              So that takes us down to just ONE ( out of MANY ) Arizona Forestry employees who was actually first “on the ground’ at the deployment site who has ever been officially interviewed by any investigators ( as far as we know )…

              OPS1 Todd Abel

              Others that we now KNOW were also “under the tape” out there at the deployment site and helping Todd Abel do the initial body count ( but who have never been interviewed ) would be…

              Jason Clawson ( PNF )
              Aaron Hulburd ( PNF )
              KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell ( PNF )
              Dean Steward ( Abel’s friend and ex engine-mate. Retired ).

              Reply

            • Actually, as I’ve continued thinking about it, I think it could just as easily have been Tony Sciacca who called Dean Steward and asked him if he could come down and help out.

              And it could have easily been after the deployment.

              If Dean Steward was there when the deaths were confirmed, which he pretty much had to have been, which happened at 6:35 pm, given that it takes about an hour to get from Prescott to Yarnell (or maybe a bit more given the probable traffic chaos), he could have left Prescott as late as 5:15-ish,

              I have a slide in my head. it’s a Tom Story photo (one of a bunch of them) showing two white-helmeted guys and some fire-fighters hunkered around the hood of Paul Musser’s truck at 5:12 PM.

              I bet you dollars to donuts that the one that isn’t Paul Musser is Tony Sciacca.

              They must have been discussing on-going operations, not the IWI. They may have even talked about how they had that dozer and how they might need it. But maybe not. But maybe so.

              This was an hour and a half before the deaths were confirmed and Todd Abel and friends were high-tailing it out to the Boulder Springs Ranch.

              Tony Sciacca was totally aware of the chaos going on, and he was not one to waste time while getting things done that needed to be done.

              Including calling his Division Supervisor (and friend), whose creds and quals I’m sure he knew all about. And probably a bunch of other people on his IMT as well.

              And at that point, all things considered, I don’t think he was thinking about doing all (or any) paperwork.

              So Tony calls Dean about that time, and Dean rolls down from Prescott, arriving about the time the deaths have been confirmed, and heads out to the Boulder Springs Ranch with his other friend (and co-member of Tony’s IMT) Todd Abel. And everybody that matters knows he’s a red-carded Dozer Boss.

              The other thing I conjured, as I was trying to conjure.

              They get out to the Boulder Springs Ranch, and do what they do, and are looking around and see a bunch of powerlines along that road leading up that west side of Glen Ilah, where everybody has been all day (and will continue, in spades) coming and going.

              Possibly burned and possibly looking like they might actually tip over or something.

              And they see “Snags.” And they think
              “Snags.” And, thus they want them DOWN. And going DOWN under THEIR control, not nature’s.

              And the rest is history.

              Oh, and PS. I actually learned about Dean Stewart being Dean Steward a LONG time ago. When we talked about him before, I went looking for him.

              I found him on Facebook. And I used to read him, and Tony, and Todd and a variety of others, conversing with each other and their friends on Facebook, regularly.

              Until they all shuttered their Facebook pages. Which didn’t surprise me at all. It happened a few weeks after the Slide Fire.

              Reply

    • Marti Reed says

      Reply to Marti post on June 17, 2015 at 9:03 am

      >> Marti said…
      >>
      >> I have no clue exactly what the dozer was doing over there when it got
      >> tangled up, but it seems to have been about clearing some kind of
      >> access out to the southwest towards BSR and the deployment site.

      We can always be pretty sure that there were no ‘down power lines’ blocking actual access out the BSR at least in the immediate aftermath of the burnover and the discovery/verification of the bodies.

      Todd Abel doesn’t mention having any problems getting right out there to the BSR with other members of his “Incident Within an Incident” command team once off-the-radar hire Jason Clawson was radioing him and telling him where the bodies were. He shot out there with his own IWI teammates ( Dean Steward included ) and was immediately walked out to the site to go ‘under the tape’ and do his OWN body count.

      Whatever consternation happened with the power lines came LATER… for other reasons.

      The way I read Paul Musser’s testimony… they first had a heck of a time getting confirmation that these power lines in question were, in fact, totally DEAD… but they wanted them CUT.

      The Utility people then told Musser to just ‘push them down’.

      So it sounds like the entanglement happened at THAT point… when they were trying to just do what the Utility people told them to do.

      Exact LOCATION where this ‘entanglement’ happened is still unknown.. but it pretty much had to be out there at the west end of Glen Ilah somewhere.

      >> Marti also said…
      >>
      >> So that might mean Todd Abel had assigned himself the dozer

      I think that is what happened, yes.

      I think shortly after the confirmation of the body count… that dozer became ‘assigned’ to Todd Abel’s “Incident Within An Incident”.

      >> Marti also said…
      >>
      >> and put Dean Stewart in charge of it as DozerBoss

      Todd Abel might have then encountered the same situation as Gary Cordes did that morning when the dozer showed up.

      Now he had a dozer… but the guy operating it wasn’t even legally able to do anything in that workplace because he lacked the correct credentials ( red-card ).

      So now Abel had to do what Cordes had to do that morning.

      He had to BORROW someone who DID have the right QUALS just to babysit the dozer so it could do any work at all.

      That might have just ended up being Dean Steward because he was THERE.

      In other words… it wasn’t even PLANNED that Steward should become any kind of HEQB/DOZB… but it just turned out that way because of this ongoing situation with
      the unqualified Paul Morin guy showing up with that dozer that day.

      >> Marti also said…
      >>
      >> Two interesting things from Tyson Esquibel’s Unit Log:
      >>
      >> “1632 St Group 1 request (1) engine to Boulder Sprgs. TF2 request after
      >> regroup @ Safety Zone. St Group 1 agrees and will meet at Cafe Safety zone.”
      >>
      >> I had read that several times in the past and thought, OK. And so there it is.
      >> Just for the record.

      Yep. And Esquibel’s log entry still matches almost EXACTLY what we hear transpiring on the radio between he and Cordes in one of thsoe ‘recently released’ Aaron Hulburd video.

      Cordes wanted one ( or two ) engines to get to the BSR.
      Esquibel said he would send ONE… but only after they got done evacuating from the Youth Camp and had a chance to regroup down at the Ranch House Restaurant.
      Gary Cordes acknowledged that plan of action with “Sounds like a plan”.

      The only thing missing between that actual radio conversation and Esquibel’s log entry is that Gary Cordes also specifically said something about that engine making sure DIVSA Marsh and/or Granite Mountain got ‘out of there safely’.

      Gary Cordes knew, for sure and certain, that at least DIVS Marsh was very near that Bolder Springs Ranch… and also that Granite Mountain was either already there or just about to arrive there. Cordes has never even denied he had this knowledge, at THAT time, just BEFORE the deployment.

      The other ‘interesting’ thing about this statement in Esquibel’s log is, of course, that Esquibel felt it was important enough to mention… but Gary Cordes himself never mentions ANYTHING about this exchange with Esquibel and the instructions he gave him.

      Not in his logs… not to any investigator… zero. zip. nada.

      >> Marti also wrote…
      >>
      >> “1900 added E-287 + Phx WT 54 to TF2, resources doing sm burnout
      >> on E side of Hwy 89 around Cafe, other units foaming cafe and
      >> structures in vicinity, lots of ember wash.”
      >>
      >> So that probably explains what Joy saw going on.

      Good catch!

      Yes.. it certainly does.

      And here is that ‘drip torch burnout’ reference Joy recently made which seems to match this log entry…

      >> On June 12, 2015 at 12:47 pm Joy A. Collura said…
      >>
      >> The drip torch videos I remember are on other side of 89 by
      >> ranch house restaurant and that wall and a firefighter visible
      >> on a hill with Pat Bernard’s place in video and photos and yes
      >> where you say above Sonny.

      Reply

  80. On the Dozer they normally would not walk it down a black top road to a new location.
    it is there fore possible that the Dozer had to load on the Low Boy and move it to a new staging area or parking area in or near Glen Isla.
    If the location the Dozer was at was a ways from the new possible dozer push and across any black top roads they would normally load and move. It takes a little time to load and secure the Dozer on the Flat bed Low Boy. This might explain the Dozer on the Low Boy driving around in Glen Isla.
    In the process the Dozer got separated from the other Fire equipment or Ball and was attempting by then to get out of the way of the fires burning thru Glen Isla with all the other traffic that was a big piece of equipment to maneuver thru that housing area.
    Every body was evacuating and they lost track of the Dozer/lowboy/operator thus the search for them.

    Reply

    • Bob~

      Yes, I agree with what you are writing here.

      I’m thinking Morin and Cory Ball lost track of each other, even though they were in the same “place,” relatively speaking.

      Reply

    • >> Bob Powers wrote…
      >>
      >> that was a big piece of equipment to maneuver thru that housing area.

      Yes, it was.

      Matter of fact.. I believe that at any point there on that main Lakewood drive… at the moment that LOBOY was travelling in either direction it would have been hard for another car to pass by it. Those were small, tight, residential roads.

      So it stands to reason that a LOT of Glen Ilah residents must have had a ‘glimpse’ of this thing when it was moving through that subdivision… in ANY direction.

      Let me just say that a part of me actually HOPES that there really was never any reason for Paul Morin to be on the same “missing persons” list as Granite Mountain was that afternoon.

      I HOPE this really does all come down to people in fire command losing track of the whereabouts of their own dozer and operator… but that he really did have plenty of time to load that puppy up and get the hell out of there.

      Any other outcome still just reflects very badly on the people who were running that fire, and how they completely lost control of the situation that afternoon.

      It will always remain odd, however, that even with all the videos and all the photographs… there is still NO SIGN of that humongous yellow LOBOY and that not-small dozer sitting on it anywhere there along Highway 89.

      We even have that long video shot by Blue Ridge from just after the time they took a left onto Highway 89 and headed south to the RHR until almost the time they pulled into the RHR. There is NO SIGN of the LOBOY Dozer ‘staged’ anywhere there along Highway 89.

      Reply

      • Correction fro above… Blue Ridge took a RIGHT onto Highway 89 coming out of the shrine area and then headed south to RHR and that is when that video was being shot.

        Reply

        • I also am surprised that the Lowboy was not on the road that the rescue UTV’s took to get out on the hill. I am assuming that is where the down power lines were. So the Dozer got there later You would think that Frisby would have gone to the last spot that the Dozer and LoBoy were at with the Chase truck. if they were still looking for it or they already knew it had moved?????

          Reply

          • The road they took on the UTVs to get out to the rescue was first, unsuccessfully, Sesame. But they couldn’t get through there, so they came back and went up Shrine. The dozer never was on Shrine.

            I doubt Frisby and Trew were even THINKING about the dozer when they were out looking for a way to find the deployment site.

            Reply

          • Bob Powers says

            Reply to Bob Powers post on June 17, 2015 at 8:21 am

            >> Bob Powers said…
            >>
            >> I also am surprised that the Lowboy was not on the road
            >> that the rescue UTV’s took to get out on the hill.

            That would have been the ‘Shrine Road’ up there on the north end of Yarnell, and not Lakewood or Manzanita down there in Glen Ilah.

            There is ZERO evidence of a Dozer ever being on Shrine Road.

            The only evidence we have that the Dozer got near that part of the world comes from the testimony of some of the FFs who were working in Harper Canyon.

            They say they dozer DID make it into Harper Canyon after finishing the ‘push’ towards the Youth Camp on that ‘Cutover Trail’.

            They say they were watching it try to ‘connect’ some line from that end of the ‘Cutover Trail’ over to where THEY were working ( with saws ) to build line in Harper Canyon… but the thing suddenly halted… reversed direction, and disappeared back down the Cutover Trail the way it had come.

            And they never got any explanation as to why that happened.

            If that was because of some kind of “You need to get the hell out of there” radio message being received by either dozer operator Paul Morin or the onboard DOAB Cory Ball… those other FFs said nobody ever bothered to give THEM the same warning.

            But as far as the LOBOY ever being anywhere on Shrine road… there is still ZERO evidence of that.

            >> Bob Powers also said…
            >>
            >> I am assuming that is where the down power lines were.

            We actually still have no idea exactly where these ‘downed power lines’ were or how the dozer got entangled in them.

            It’s pretty much a given that these ‘downed power lines’ could NOT have been blocking access out to the Boulder Springs Ranch at any time following the deployment.

            Not long after the bodies were located… Todd Abel ( who was now the Granite Mountain Incident Within an Incident Commander ) was able to hightail it out to the BSR along with 3 or 4 other members of this newly formed IWI command team ( including now, we learn, his close friend Dean Stewart ( Steward ) ).

            Todd Abel reported NO PROBLEMS getting out there to the BSR in this post-deployment timeframe.

            He was able to get out there… then he was walked out to the deployment site and went “under the tape” and did his OWN body count.

            So exactly WHERE ( and WHEN ) these “downed power lines” ended up ‘entangling the dozer”… we still don’t know for sure.

            >> Bob Powers also said…
            >>
            >> So the Dozer got there later You would think that Frisby
            >> would have gone to the last spot that the Dozer and
            >> LoBoy were at with the Chase truck.

            He tried.

            The Blue Ridge GPS tracking data for the post-deployment timeframe shows he and Trueheart Brown trying to do exactly that.

            They took off in the Ranger from the RHR parking lot and shot straight down Lakewood… but they STOPPED right there in about the middle of Glen Ilah where Manazanita intersects with Lakewood.

            They stopped at the exact same location where Cory Ball had taken some of his photographs after re-entering Glen Ilah on the ATV, sometime earlier than the launch of this ‘ground rescue mission’.

            It must have simply still been “too hot” to go any further west on Lakewood than that same intersection with Manazanita.

            Frisby and Brown ‘probed’ a few more ways to get to the west end of Glen Ilah… but then gave up, dashed up north to Shrine Road… and then eventually ‘broke through’ up there.

            >> Bob Powers also said…
            >>
            >> if they were still looking for it or they already
            >> knew it had moved?????

            I’m going to agree with Marti here and say that even though someone HAD put this dozer operator ( Paul Morin ) on the same “Missings Persons” list as Granite Mountain… that Frisby and Brown were NOT all that concerned about THAT guy.

            Only a few more interviews and a few more questions for Frisby and Brown could clear that up.

            Maybe they WERE *very* concerned about finding this ‘missing’ dozer guy as well as Granite Mountain.

            Maybe it was Blue Ridge Hotshot Cory Ball who told his own supervisor ( Brian Frisby or Trueheart Brown ) about this saga whereby he had been trying to “hook back up” with the dozer like SPGS1 Gary Cordes had told him to do… but that he wasn’t able to do it and then he totally lost track of the guy.

            Maybe it was then, in turn, Frisby or Brown who passed this on to “Incident Within an Incident” commander Todd Abel and he’s the one who added this ‘dozer guy’ to DPS Ranger 58’s search list.

            Lotta maybes in there, I know.

            But SOMEONE put that dozer guy on the ‘missings persons’ list.
            And SOMEONE passed that full list on to DPS chopper Ranger 58.

            Reply

  81. Reply to Marti Reed post on June 16, 2015 at 3:19 pm

    >> Marti said…
    >>
    >> The dozer that put in the line to the deployment wasn’t the second dozer.
    >> It was the same dozer as we have been talking about.

    Apparently so, yes.

    Obviously what we are now referring to as the ‘second dozer’ was the one that was ordered from May Machinery and, according to the time sheet, was being ‘operated’ by Mr. William May himself.

    What we are now referring to as the ‘first dozer’ was that one that Gary Cordes ordered at 2:15 AM Sunday morning and was the one that showed up from Yavapai County after dawn with YC Public Works employee Paul Morin operating it.

    That ‘first dozer’ worked TWO consecutive shifts in Yarnell with only a 3 hour break in-between.

    First shift was 14 hours long from 7 AM Sunday morning until 9 PM Sunday night with Paul Morin as the operator and the second shift started 3 hours later at midnight and then went for 13 hours until 2 PM on the afternoon of July 1… with Donald Rezzonico as the operator for that second shift.

    From the timesheet for Dozer 06562…

    Dozer: Cat D7R / Serial # 06562 / From: Yavapai County
    Shift 1: START: June 30 – 0700 (7 AM) STOP: 2100 (9 PM) Hrs: 14 Operator: Paul Morin
    Shift 2: START: July 1 – 0000 (Midnight) STOP: 1300 (2 PM) Hrs: 13 Operator: Donald Rezzonico

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> But we’re still talking about two different operators.

    Yes. Paul Morin for the first 14 hour shift and then ( after a 3 hour break ) Donald Rezzonico started the next shift on that same dozer at MIDNIGHT Sunday night and then went for 13 hours until 2 PM the next afternoon.

    But we are ALSO talking about ( at least ) three different HEQB / DOZB supervisors.

    For Shift 1 ( with Paul Morin as operator )… Gary Cordes first met him when he arrived and was the one first playing HEQB/DOZB and putting Morin to work out there in that middle bowl. At around 10:00 AM is when Blue Ridge Hothshot Cory Ball relieved Cordes as HEQB/DOZB and then Ball held that position until later that afternoon.

    For Shift 2 ( with Donald Rezzonico as operator ) OPS1 Todd Abel’s good friend Dean Stewart ended up the HEQB/DOZB and was fulfilling that role overnight and during the time that dozer push was put in from the BSR out to the deployment site.

    The information that OPS1 Todd Abel’s close friend ( and former Engine mate ) Dean Stewart showed up out of nowhere to be HEQB/DOZB was first given by Darrell Willis in his ADOSH interview. I’ll add that testimony to this message as a ‘Reply’.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> And it still appears to me, at this point, that, given the timing and the work orders,
    >> Morin (the first operator) was still involved in that downed power line incident,

    Yes.

    According to the time sheets… unless Paul Morin really is the one ‘injury’ that has always been showing up on the Yarnell Hill 209 forms and he had to be treated at a hospital.. then Paul Morin remained the dozer operator for that first shift until 9:00 PM Sunday night.

    And that WOULD have made Paul Morin the ‘operator’ who was dealing with these downed power lines as described by Musser ( and Dan Philbin and others ).

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> and the second operator took over the dozer around midnight, when
    >> they actually finally started putting that line in.

    Yes.

    As of midnight… Yavapi County Public Works employee Donald Rezzonico was now ‘operating’ that same Yavapai County Dozer number 06562 and OPS1 Todd Abel’s good friend and ex-engine mate Dean Stewart would now have been acting HEQB/DOZB.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> Too bad when Musser mentioned that in his interview, nobody actually
    >> asked him more about it, all things considered.

    Yes… but one other person who has never been interviewed ( but should have been ) would also be Todd Abel’s good friend Dean Stewart.

    Dean Stewart knows all about what was going on with this Yavapai County dozer.

    HE was the one designated as active HEQB/DOZB for that entire second shift and on through the removal of the Granite Mountain bodies.

    Reply

    • Followup…

      The following is from a post made back in Chapter 10 of this ongoing discussion…

      Direct jumplink to that previous discussion would be…
      http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-x/#comment-197510

      This is where that part of Darrell Willis ADOSH interview was first printed where he tells ADOSH he knew EXACTLY who put in that dozer line from the Boulder Springs Ranch out to the deployment site.

      It was OPS1 Todd Abel’s close friend Dean Stewart.

      From the Chapter 10 post…
      ——————————————————————————-
      Darrell Willis told ADOSH investigators it was ‘Dean Stewart’ who actually took over the dozer work sometime after the deployment and who pushed that dozer line out to the deployment site.

      Dean Stewart is one of OPS1 Todd Abel’s long time ‘Engine mates’ and one of Abel’s best friends. They are seen ‘hunting’ and ‘cooking out’ together in many, many photos on both Todd Abel’s and Dean Stewart’s public ‘Facebook’ pages.

      From Darrell Willis’ first ADOSH interview on August 19, 2013…

      ————————————————————————-
      1089 A: Ah, I walked up to Todd and I said, “Did I hear that correct?” And he said,
      1090 “Yeah you heard.” At that point I was done. I mean, I mean, I made two
      1091 phone calls again. I called my wife and I called, um, the Fire Chief and told
      1092 him what’s going on and, ah, sat there for another hour or so and determined
      1093 that, um, when it cooled off, ah, you know, I didn’t want to see the guys. But I
      1094 wanted to protect their honorably, protect them because I knew that nobody
      1095 was gonna get in there that night.
      1096
      1097 Q1: Mm-hm.
      1098
      1099 A: So a few of us stuck around and went to the Helms Ranch. Parked there and,
      1100 ah, waited until the Sheriff’s investigation team came in the next morning.
      1101 After they put that dozer line in.
      1102
      1103 Q1: Yeah. So you guys stayed right there at the Helm Ranch out there.
      1104
      1105 A: Mm-hm.
      1106
      1107 Q1: Um, and they put the dozer line in during the night?
      1108
      1109 A: During the night. Wanted to have it – there was a couple thoughts that was
      1110 going through our mind. One, we didn’t want – we wanted to get the Sheriff in
      1111 and out of there. He said he could do that really quick.
      1112
      1113 Q1: Yeah.
      1114
      1115 A: That we wouldn’t have news helicopters videoing all that. We wanted to get
      1116 that done early, early. So the decision was made to put a dozer line so we
      1117 could get the Sheriff in and get the body removal team out. In and out before
      1118 the helicopters. The other thought was that we get air attack up at first light to
      1119 keep all the news helicopters out of there. We knew we couldn’t keep them
      1120 height-wise but we could keep them from getting a really good shot at them.
      1121
      1122 Q1: Um, prior – prior to this point in time, ah, when you’re waiting, can you hear
      1123 air attack on the radio as you’re monitoring the radio and was there anything
      1124 going on that you could hear that made any sense about what?
      1125
      1126 A: You know what, I gotta just be honest with you. I wasn’t focused at that point
      1127 in time. I was, you know, all I was waiting to hear was they’re okay. They’re
      1128 okay.
      1129
      1130 Q1: Mm-hm.
      1131
      1132 A: I really wasn’t engaged in…
      1133
      1134 Q1: Yeah.
      1135
      1136 A: …suppression or…
      1137
      1138 Q1: Right.
      1139
      1140 A: …anything. I – I pretty much just given it over. I was just a body standing there
      1141 waiting for news.
      1142
      1143 Q1: Yeah. Um, so and you don’t know who actually took the dozer in that night?
      1144
      1145 A: I do.
      1146
      1147 Q1: Who was that?
      1148
      1149 A: Um, Dean – worked for Central.
      1150
      1151 Q: Marquez?
      1152
      1153 A: No. It was, um…
      1154
      1155 Q2: What was the name?
      1156
      1157 A: No that was – he was a division out there. He works for Central Yavapai.
      1158
      1159 Q1: Okay.
      1160
      1161 A: Dean Stewart.
      1162
      1163 Q1: Dean Stewart.
      1164
      1165 A: Works for Central Yavapai. He’s the dozer boss and they had flagged it in. I
      1166 think him and a couple guys from the Prescott National Forest flagged in a
      1167 dozer line.
      1168
      1169 Q1: Okay.
      1170
      1171 A: And they just pushed it up and then pushed the whole flat area where that flag
      1172 is and stuff.
      1173
      1174 Q1: Right. Right.
      1175
      1176 A: Just to that point.
      ———————————————————————

      So it was ‘Dean Stewart’ who took over the ‘dozer boss’ job following the deployment and was the one who pushed the line out to the deployment site.

      It is unknown WHEN Dean Stewart arrived in Yarnell.

      Dean Stewart may have become HEQB/DOZB for that Yavapai County Dozer for the tail end of its FIRST shift ( with Paul Morin still the operator ) and then Stewart might have picked right up again at midnight for the second shift with operator Donald Rezzonico.

      Dean Stewart has never been interviewed by any investigator.

      Not YET, anyway.

      Reply

        • I’m still formulating my own ‘summary’ post on the new evidence that showed up today… but I’ve only had a few hours to look at all that and I don’t want to ‘shoot from the hip’.

          I think this is an important re-visit of these crucial moments leading up to the deployment… and the new evidence is (as usual with this thing) raising almost as many questions as it answers.

          In the meantime, though, you DO have to wonder.

          WHO took over as HEQB/OZB from Cory Ball?

          The timesheet does NOT show Paul Morin going “off the clock” at all ( not for one second ) during that “first shift”.

          So the MOMENT Cory Ball was no longer Morin’s designated HEQB/DOZB…

          …then who WAS?

          I think we already started touching on this down below even before today’s new evidence showed up.

          It’s actually TWO different questions that have always needed to have been answered.

          Who was ultimately RESPONSIBLE for that ‘dozer resource’.
          Who was the HEZB/DOZB the moment Cory Ball wasn’t anymore?

          We already know that Yavapai County Public Works employee Paul Morin did NOT have a valid red-card or the ability to ( legally ) do anything at all in that Arizona Forestry workplace without the direct supervision of someone who had HEQB/DOZB ratings.

          So if he did end up working on ‘other assignments’ like ’emergency dozer lines’ ( pre-deployment ) or ‘clearing power lines” ( post-deployment )…

          … then WHO did Cordes designate as his valid HEQB/DOZB to replace Cory Ball the moment Cory Ball was no longer fulfilling that role.

          Or do we have this all backwards?

          Did Cory Ball REMAIN the HEQB/DOZB for this Morin guy… and his quick trip to deliver the BR Chase Truck back to the RHR was only supposed to be a “side-job” and Ball really was still supposed to be his designated HEQB/DOZB for *whatever* was going to happen next?

          There are many, many questions still lying on the table here that only Paul Morin, Cory Ball and Gary Cordes ( and YES… OPS2 Paul Musser ) can probably answer.

          Reply

          • I believe that Ball Would have re joined the Crew.
            First for some time after the Blow up every one would have gathered up at the RHR to re organize also the Burn over of GM stopped all work for some time as is normal.
            The Crew being close to the GM Crew would not have been put back on the Line but put into Camp where they were set down talked to and asked to fill out statements. With Frisby and Brown out on the search the Squad bosses would have been in control of the crew and all would have been together including Ball. My thoughts from personal reference.

            BR had put in a full shift as well and they would have been in camp for the night along with other crews. The night shift would have been scattered until a new plan could be set up after a full scout of the Fire.
            It would have been do not get any one else hurt until we have a full evaluation of the Fire at that point.

            Reply

            • We are obviously missing a pretty important conversation / exchange that must have taken place between SPGS1 Gary Cordes and acting HEQB / DOZB Cory Ball whereby Cordes either told Ball he did NOT need him babysitting that dozer anymore… or he DID because Cordes wasn’t done with it yet.

              Cory Ball is still under a USDA imposed Federal gag order.

              The parts of his unit log that might actually explain more of this have been redacted with the US Forestry Service claiming a ‘sensitive information’ exemption as the justification for those redactions…

              …but no one has ever even tried to get the US Forestry to explain why just some entries in a log related to working with a dozer could possibly be such ‘sensitive inforrmation’ that it has to be redacted from valid, legal FOIA requests.

              Gary Cordes is NOT sitting behind a Federal gag order.

              Reply

            • Bob,

              After Ball got run out of Glen Ilah after his first trip in, and after he came back to the RHR, he went BACK IN to Glen Ilah and took a collection of photos while doing I know not exactly what, but, I think, related to continuing evacuations and monitoring and such.

              As a matter of fact in his notes he says:

              “Notify structure group one about fire and structures on corner of manzanita and lockwood xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

              Started evacuations of subdivision.

              Helitanker drops water near manzanita junction.

              Inquiry about helitanker availability. Told there are other priorities xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

              Evacuations for next couple of hours.”

              His photo of his start back into Glen Ilah, 1892, is taken at 5:48 PM. His photo 1902 is taken at 5:51 PM. HIs last photo of the day is taken at 6:48 PM way back out away from Yarnell somewhere, and I don’t know exactly where.

              From Trew’s notes:

              “2030- we tie back in with the crew xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx about what to do with the Granite Mountain Rigs. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

              2200 xxxxx and head into ICP and tie in with xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [there’s a pproximately a mile of x’s here] I have the guys drive the Granite mountains rigs to the Yarnell Fire Station and leave them there. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx We grab food for the guys and find a sleeping spot and have a informal AAR/QA.”

              I don’t have time to continue this, but the BlueRidgeIHC.pdf which contains all the notes they had to sit down in a room and write, contains a lot more jottings about how/when they left the Ranch House Restaurant (along with just about everybody else) when it just became too smoke-infested and dangerous to continue staying there.

              Reply

              • Looks like Ball was actually doing some things related or not to the Dozer. Maybe because he had a UTV to get around in.
                Interesting any way.

                Reply

                • Right.

                  Once the “Cordes/Musser Plan” to put a dozer line to the southwest of Glen Ilah was dead, and everything focused on the deployment, somehow Dean Steward showed up, and they were thinking about clearing out some way to make it easier to get over to the Helms Ranch, and gain access to the deployment site, so it became kind of a no-brainer for Todd Abel to “own” the dozer and make Steward it’s dozer boss, and they started doing whatever until the whole power line mess happened, and Dan Philbin “assisted” with that, since he was now Structure Group 2 Sup.

                  At which point Morin signed out around nine and then the other operator signed in around midnite and they started putting in the line to the deployment site.

                  This really should have been investigated, or at least ASKED about, all things considered.

                  Dean Steward was very “off the radar” for that, but also very “plugged in.”

                  None of this would have happened if that dozer had actually experienced a real “burnover.”

                  Reply

                  • >> Marti said…
                    >>
                    >> None of this would have happened if that
                    >> dozer had actually experienced a real “burnover.”

                    That’s a good point.

                    At the very least… it certainly means that if Paul Morin really did have to ride a ‘burnover’ / burnaround with the dozer ( and loboy ) still at the south of the Sesame clearing…

                    …then he obviously survived and the dozer was obviously not out-of-commision with melted brake or hydraulic lines or anything like that.

                    But yes…there is STILL a huge STORY here that deserves to be told… including whether this Cordes/Musser plan ever really reached any level of planning other than what Cory Ball has already testified to.

                    Reply

  82. Well, I have figured out one “lesson learned” so far from the Eric Marsh smoking dope on the Clear Creek Fire incident and the U.S. Supreme Court helped get there yesterday.

    1. If a wildland firefighter who happens to be a supervisor of a USFS Type I Hotshot Crew gets caught smoking dope and drinking alcohol with some of his crew which included the saw teams on the fire line in a state (Idaho) where all dope is illegal all of the time to use or posses, and if those same firefighters are from a state (Arizona) that has very restrictive laws or who can possess and smoke dope for specific medical conditions, but where it is against federal law to possess or use regardless, that wildland firefighters career will not be over, because they can be hired by the Prescott Fire Department to manage and supervise another Type I Hotshot Crew either because the USFS supervisors and managers where to lazy and incompetent to do the appropriate paperwork to terminate that person with cause in which case that person simply just was told they would not be re-hired after they were laid off, or if the paperwork to terminate actually was done, and then the Prescott Fire Department hired them anyway because they didn’t care, and in either case, the incident would be so widely known, that virtually everyone in the wildland firefighting business in the nation would have heard about the incident which would have included Darrell Willis, that they will still hire that person to manage and supervise an entire crew made of impressionable young men and whichever the case may have been, this judgment on the part of the wildland firefighter supervisor would not be viewed as a disqualifying display of extremely poor judgment, Got that?

    2. If a quadriplegic who works in an office job for the Dish Network in a state (Colorado) where all pot is legal all of the time (if you are old enough) smokes dope to ease the symptoms caused by his medical condition during his off duty hours and on his own time fails a random drug test, that person can be FIRED. Got that?

    3. Which of course means the Dish Network has much higher standards for their quadriplegic office workers than the wildland firefighting community does for their elite, best of the best, Type I Hotshot Superintendent. Any questions.

    So…I’m just thinking off the top of my head, gonna take a stab at making a suggestion to the people who have this all under control and don’t need any outsiders meddling in their business because they can figure out the lessons learned themselves by reading in between the lines…maybe, just maybe, the wildland firefighting community should think about raising their standards a little bit? Maybe think about setting the bar just a little bit higher? I am not going to go as far as suggesting that elite, best of the best, Type I Superintendents have to meet the same standard as quadriplegic office workers for the Dish Network do, or anything outrageous, but maybe you could do a little better? What do you say? At least think about it….pretty please, with sugar on it.

    Reply

    • Oh…and one more thing. And just in case any of my detractors and even supporters out there are wondering, how can a guy who is capable of writing a rant like he did against Elizabeth in defense of Fred, Bob and this Blog go from being the second to the last shovel on a hotshot crew at age 20, to a hotshot crew boss at 23, to the Coordinator of a Zone Interagency Fire Operations Center at 30, to retiring at 54 as a Senior Special Agent, Supervisory Criminal Investigator working for the Washington D.C. Office of my agency? Especially when I am basically the same person now as I was then except I don’t have to worry about passing a background investigation every 5 years where they tear your life apart looking for a reason to fire you?

      Well, I will tell you what I have always told everybody. You have to take the good with the bad, I have always been capable of saying and doing outrageous things if I think it is the right thing to do, but I have also always been capable of doing, dare I say it…brilliant work. And I was lucky enough to run into supervisors, and most of the time they sought me out, I ever applied for a job I was not preselected for (wired into) after I was first hired by the Coconino N..F. as a temporary employee in 1975 who were willing to overlook my dark side because they benefitted enough from my work that it made it worth it to them to put up with me, and promote me to keep me happy.

      No one else out there is crazy enough or aggressive enough to post what I am posting about Eric Marsh and his work history even thought this tragedy is 2 years old and thousands of people know everything I know and a whole bunch more. But I promised you I would be THAT GUY if nobody beat me to it, but I was hoping they would.

      Do you think I enjoy being the one to destroy Eric Marsh’s reputation on line. Well I don’t’ I still identify with the guy and would like to give him a man hug and go to a taquería with him to get some dinner and try to talk some sense into him. I want to forgive him, I just wouldn’t want him managing my hotshot crew.

      So, you got to take the bad with the good or at least you do until John Dougherty blocks me. I call them like I see them and sometimes I get pretty adamant about it. That’s why my nickname at work used to be the “Jackhammer” (among some other not very nice names) and they didn’t call the Jackhammer in a positive way either.

      Reply

      • And just for the record, the people who provided me with the information about Eric Marsh feel the same way I do, they just don’t think the best way to get to where we need to be is by covering things up and pretending they didn’t happen. And I hope they continue to feel that way, because it is the right thing to do and I still hope more come forward.

        Reply

      • Gary~

        You wrote:

        “Do you think I enjoy being the one to destroy Eric Marsh’s reputation on line. Well I don’t’”

        That’s exactly how I have been feeling, ever since Sunday morning, when I discovered and began (and still continue) “publishing” Paul Musser’s serious relationship to Gary Cordes’ “Plan” (or THEIR plan) to corral a bunch of resources to attempt to put in a last-minute hail-mary dozer line (potentially even enhanced by the Granite Mountain Hotshots?) in the last of all the last minutes while this fire was reversing direction and sweeping down toward the south/southwest side of the fire.

        I don’t know if you have been reading what we have been writing, but it’s all pretty jaw-dropping.

        And I like Paul Musser and thought JD did kind of a “hatchet-job” on him by, actually – without accurate evidence – writing, for all the world to see, that Musser had requested GM to come down to Yarnell to “help save it.”

        But, after Sunday morning, when I sat there and contemplated the significant implications of what was staring me in the face, and, then, how relentlessly this whole “incident” had been sealed into an envelope and stashed away in some “filing cabinet,” even though it put at risk some lives, even possibly those of the Granite Mountain Hotshots…………….

        ……………………..I have had this strong sense that this story really really really needs to come to light.

        And I’m not the only one.

        And it is starting to emerge, finally.

        And I don’t feel good about it at all.

        But I believe it needs to happen, and I’m strongly committed to (in spite of my declaration to retire on July 1) making sure that happens.

        And, therefore, I’m really really really really really open to someone proving me wrong. But, so far, nobody has done that.

        Just as I was, last year, writing about this fire being a rotating column (and even, possibly a rotating double column, with the place where those two columns came together RIGHT OVER that bowl where the 19 died), and asking for correction if I needed that – and to this day nobody has corrected me.

        I really have absolutely NO INVESTMENT in being right.

        I totally have a serious investment in contributing to an open conversation (just as how Joy has REPEATEDLY described it) in the direction of getting to the actual truth of what happened on this fire and why.

        So I guess what I’m saying is that I know how you are feeling, and, right now, I’m pretty much feeling the same way.

        And I don’t think I’m the only one.

        Namaste

        Reply

        • Marti wrote, “And I like Paul Musser and thought JD did kind of a “hatchet-job” on him by, actually – without accurate evidence – writing, for all the world to see, that Musser had requested GM to come down to Yarnell to “help save it.”

          Yes, I have been reading what is being written, but I missed this. And Paul Musser is a former hotshot crew boss.

          Reply

  83. Reply to Marti Reed post on June 15, 2015 at 11:51 am

    NOTE: This is being brought up from down below. It’s a good question that deserves an answer.

    It was part of the thread below that was re-visiting this whole “emergency dozer line” assignment that Cory Ball SAYS ( in his own Unit Log ) he was given by SPGS1 Gary Cordes.

    >> Marti said…
    >>
    >> WTKTT and Bob:
    >>
    >> Reading this right here, now, another question just popped up in my brain.
    >>
    >> We have, on again off again, discussed who was RESPONSIBLE for the dozer
    >> and its operator, pretty much agreeing, if I remember correctly, that once the
    >> dozer left the Blue Ridge assignment at the cutover, and handed over his radio,
    >> he was no longer under their responsibility.

    Yes. The moment Frisby and Brown decided there was no more time left to do anything at all with that Cutover Trail… they told their own men to RTO and basically said “goodbye” to the dozer.

    They took the radio back from him and he went on his merry way south back towards where his LOBOY trailer was parked at the south end of the Sesame Clearing.

    Acting HEQB/DOZB Cory Ball appears to have ‘ridden’ along in/on the dozer along with Yavapai County Public Works employee ( and dozer operator ) Paul Morin because Frisby had told Ball to do that.

    Frisby had, apparently, told Ball to ride with Morin in order to move the Blue Ridge Chase Truck with the Polaris UTV trailer atteched to it back over to the Ranch House Restaurant.

    Before Paul Morin and Cory Ball headed south is when, I believe, Captain Trueheart Brown took his loaner BK handheld radio BACK from dozer operator Paul Morin.

    As far as Brown knew, at that point, they were ‘done with the dozer’ and saying GOODBYE…
    So why would he NOT take the loaner radio back at that point?

    The other possiblity there is that Trueheart Brown still let dozer operator Paul Morin hand onto that lonaer BK radio just for the drive back down to the LOBOY… and then Cory Ball himself collected the radio back from Morin before HE ( Ball ) took off in BR Chase truck.

    I DO NOT THINK this whole last-ditch-effort “scout emergency dozer line to protect Glen Ilah” thing coming from Gary Cordes had actually been conceived BEFORE Frisby and Brown said GOODBYE to Morin and the dozer up there on the Cutover trail.

    I believe it was shortly AFTER the ‘goodbye’ moment that Cordes called Frisby wanting to know if that east-west dozr line they’d been working on all day was any kind of ‘burnout option’ as this fire came charging into town. Frisby said “no way”. Only then might Cordes have thought to tell Cory Ball ( and one mysterious other? ) to go “scout dozer line to protect Glen Ilah”.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> Does this whole thing change that? When Cory Ball accepted that assignment from
    >> Cordes/Musser, did that make, Cory the dozers Dozer Boss again?

    Yes. That would be my take, anyway. The FFs who post here might think different.

    That Yavapai County employee ( Paul Morin ) that came with the dozer that morning was not adequately red-carded to even be operating that dozer on an Arizona Forestry fire. That’s why Cory Ball had to be ‘inserted’ into the situation in the first place.

    So yes… if there were ANY other plans to use that dozer for ANYTHING else in that area… including some possible emergeny last-ditch-effort dozer pushes… then there was STILL supposed to be a valid red-carded HEQB / DOZB involved or the work couldn’t be done.

    So that’s why Cory Ball HAD to be involved in this “last ditch effort” plan on Cordes’ part.
    If the dozer was going to do ANY work… Cory Ball had to be involved.

    >> Marti also said…
    >>
    >> Wouldn’t that have meant he really WAS responsible for what happened to it?

    Again… the fire guys will have to chime in here.

    If you are the valid, assigned HEQB / DOZB for a dozer and its operator… then YES… you ARE responsible for it.

    If it drives off a cliff… it’s gonna be YOUR fault.

    So under what conditions would its whereabouts and the safety of its operator NOT still be direct responsibility of the assigned HEQB / DOZB? ( Cory Ball ).

    As for Frisby and Brown sharing any ‘responsibility’… that’s another good question.

    That dozer was never ‘assigned’ to Blue Ridge, per se.

    The ONLY connection to Blue Ridge was that Blue Ridge Hotshot Cory Ball was ‘borrowed’ away from Blue Ridge that morning to act as HEQB / DOZB all day for that dozer.

    The dozer apparently ‘BELONGED’ to SPGS1 Gary Cordes, from an organizational chart point of view..

    Cordes ordered it ( with Shumate ) the night before.
    Cordes met it when it arrived.
    Cordes first rode it out into the middle bowl and put it to work.
    Cordes saw to it that he was ‘relieved’ as DOZB by Cory Ball.

    So technically, SPGS1 Cordes was the one who OWNED that dozer and was really responsible for it not getting either burned up or its operator getting killed. HEQB / DOZB Cory Ball was then the ‘hands on’ responsibility… but still reporting back to SPGS1 Gary Cordes.

    There was NO DIVISION Supervisor in that area who comes into play here.

    That’s what is ( and always has been ) bizarre about this Yarnell Fire.

    The very place where the fire ended up doing the most damage and KILLING people had not hands-on Division Supervisor at ANY time that day.

    It was SPGS1 Gary Cordes who was playing BOTH the SPGS1 and DIVS role(s) all day on that south end of the Yarnell Hill Fire.

    Even when Planning OPS2 Paul Musser got up out of his chair at the ICP and decided to jump into the fire as the SECOND active “Field OPS”… and he decided he was going to be the OPS in charge down in Yarnell…

    …Musser didn’t give one hoot or crap that there was some guy named Rance Marquez floating around somewhere who was SUPPOSED to be “Division Z” for that south end of the fire.

    Nope. Musser just started interacting directly with SPGS1 Gary Cordes as if HE was the DIVS on the south end… and Musser couldn’t have cared less where this DIVSZ Rance Marquez guy was.

    >> Marti also wrote…
    >>
    >> What would have been the consequences of that if the whole thing hadn’t
    >> been, essentially, erased from the investigative record?

    See above. A bloody mess.

    – No actual hands-on DIV in that area to be ‘responsible’ for anything.

    – Some Structure Guy ( Cordes ) who later says he’s not even a specialist in structure protection playing both SPGS1 and DIVS at the same time.

    – Some Hotshot who is running the dozer just because he was the only one available that morning who had the re-card bullshit needed for the dozer to actually be operating on a State fire.

    – Some Yavapai County Employee ( Paul Morin ) showing up to run a dozer on an Arizona State fire when he doesn’t even have the right qualifications of ratings to be doing that.

    So yea… establishing WHO had actually totally “dropped the ball” if that dozer or its operator had gotten fried that day would have been quite a game of…

    “dozer… dozer… who’s got the dozer?”

    Reply

    • >> WTKTT said…
      >>
      >> So yea… establishing WHO had actually totally “dropped the ball” if that dozer or its
      >> operator had gotten fried that day would have been quite a game of…
      >>
      >> “dozer… dozer… who’s got the dozer?”

      Actually… the WHO ( specifically ) wouldn’t have mattered at all to ADOSH.

      To answer the question you were really asking above… if this whole thing with the dozer had NOT been being purposely ‘hidden’ from them and they WERE tasked with examining yet another ‘incident-within-an-incident’ where someone almost got killed that day…

      …this one would have been like Brendan McDonough’s ‘incident-within-an-incident’.

      Following a full investigation… another near-entrapment citation would have been issued even if the frickin’ dozer operator ( Paul Morin ) himself was laughing it all off and trying to say he never felt like he was in any danger that day… and that he rides out burnovers and burn-arounds in the cab of his dozer all the time. No big whoop.

      And that ‘additional’ citation would have had the same name and address on it.

      Arizona Forestry – Care of:The lovely state of Arizona, US of A.

      Reply

      • Ill start with your last statement—We still have no clue if in fact the Dozer Operator even road out a burn over or loaded and moved along with the rest of the evacuation.

        A SPGS1 is the same as the old Sector Boss position on a Division there could be 2 or 3 Sectors with Strike team leaders Each Sector could have Crews, Dozers, Engines.
        With out a Division Supervisor that SPGS1 would answer directly to OPS.
        So yes there is still a chain of command.

        I am having a little trouble with Ball the DOZB.
        If they were disengaging then moved back to the Lowboy and he took Radio the assignment was over. The Dozer was released.
        Back at the RHR Ball received a new assignment but Had no Dozer unless he could find it. Again we do not know if the Dozer Moved on the Low Boy or Stayed in the cleared zone. I would say it loaded and moved it had no communications with the Fire overhead or the DOZB.
        Balls Assignment was DOZB until released by the OPS/Fire why Frisby/Brown were telling him to move to the RHR is a little out of sink with the chain of command
        so my confusion. Also taking the Radio seem to indicate that the Dozer was released. Every body was pulling back to RHR why would the Dozer sit out there with out a Supervisor or Communications this was a Green Operator in Fire I would assume he would load and get the hell out of there. Again I am assuming he would also return to the Equipment yard and not the RHR. Thus his where is he missing Dozer??????????

        Reply

        • Wwtktt bob marti

          new photos annd updated dozer information in your email inbox . none are to be used ffor public display unless you have owner of photos permission …the person is looking deeper for us now but wants to remain out of public . After hearing what Bob told me on tone deliveryoof. Chief Ben Palm on my name not Sonny…when at pc U am going to get real raw so all ypu sharks get ready…you can create me into whatever you want yet God only knows….

          Reply

            • Joy said there was a Dozer on a LowBoy headed into Glen Isla and then came back out that also sounds like the time that the Fire Fighters were evacuating. This could be our lost Dozer?????

              Reply

              • Yep. It sounds a whole lot messier than I had in mind. (Of course, I’ve ALWAYS said reality is messier than theory). Still scratching my head. Fortunately, I just had a really awesome pizza delivered to eat while I scratch my head.

                I’m sure it’s “our” dozer. Unfortunately, I’m still not certain about the timing.

                It almost sounds to me like the time she is describing is more like later than we were thinking that photo of Ball was taken, given the way the smoke column looks.

                And, no, I’m not seeing any more photos of Ball or any of the dozer in the collection.

                Reply

                  • Copy that on TIME for photo 097 now being probably LATER than 4:15 PM.

                    Also copy that on the eyewitness report of dozer being seen ON the LOBOY.

                    I’m still ‘catching up’ with everything that was sent… but I find no reason to DOUBT that eye-witness account.

                    It’s possible we are looking at a situation where the dozer really DID follow Ball out of there at first… but now maybe Cordes sent it back IN?… as part of this ‘plan’?… but there was ( of course ) no TIME left for that plan to come together.

                    There’s still two things that aren’t going to go away here.

                    1.) Cory Ball’s statement in his own Unit Log that “he and one other” were told to go scout for a place to put in some emergency dozer line to protect Glen Ilah.

                    Exact TIME that assignment was made: Unknown.

                    2.) The dozer operator ( assuming Paul Morin ) ended up on the “missings persons” list along with Granite Mountain.

                    Exact REASON he was on that list: Still unknown.

                    Reply

                    • OK. I’m back.

                      “Copy that on TIME for photo 097 now being probably LATER than 4:15 PM.”

                      Actually, I’m still NOT saying I think photo 097 was taken all that much later that 4:15 PM (see what I wrote downstream.

                      Because of the smoke column which is still, essentially going UP. Which, as the fire entered Glen Ilah, in full force, the column bent over and things didn’t even remotely look iike they did in that photos.

                      And I’m currently thinking the description of what was going on from Joy’s source may have happened when Cory Ball, after acquiring the ATV, drove BACK in.

                      But I could be wrong. Which is why it’s such a relief that we now, finally, have an eye-witness.

                      See what I wrote quite a bit downstream.

                    • OK, at this point I’m braindead enough to go watch YouTube videos about stuff like flash-floods in the great southwest and rafting the Grand Canyon.

                      Given that we’re not having any fire season in New Mexico, but we’re having a LOT of rain.

          • Cell battery low.

            My communications via cell frustrating …soon I will post more photos via email and again cannot be used for the world to see. I have no photo storage so Bob had photos not Powers but private local. anyone know how I can get his fire album off apple pad. i tried for hours and long story…i even sent aa few to wwtktt but i was drained last night …sonnny is at Prescott va..his procedure is tomorrow …he has hour to kill annd he choose blackjack iver library ….so will have to continue …heart n lung…brb but wanted to quickly say the photos will only be shared to one investigator and marti bob and wwtktt….noonne else…our town trusts these folks above will properly assess it so no need anyone to privately ask for thwm…i am going to owner of photos and emailing directfrom their account so i do not have any of the pictures just what’s sent by email …

            Reply

            • Joy~

              I have two ideas for how to get photos off your apple pad.

              Depending on how big the album is, you can get a Dropbox account for free and upload them to there. I use Dropbox all the time. I pass stuff back and forth between my computer and my ipad (and used to to my mom’s ipad) all the time like that.

              My second idea might not work, come to think of it. That was to use a memory card. Unfortunately, since it’s an ipad, you need a kit to do that and even then it probably might not work (thanks Apple!!!).

              I’d go for Dropbox. It’s really really easy. And really accessible. As a matter of fact, it’s much easier to pass stuff to other people via Dropbox than just about any other way. That’s why everybody uses it.

              Good luck!

              Reply

        • Reply to Bob Powers post on June 16, 2015 at 6:08 am

          >> Bob Powers said…
          >>
          >> Ill start with your last statement—We still have no clue if in
          >> fact the Dozer Operator even road out a burn over or loaded
          >> and moved along with the rest of the evacuation.

          Correct.

          The only real CLUE we have is that, apparently, the Arizona State Forestry employees charged with running that fire didn’t have a frickin’ CLUE, either.

          SOMEONE in fire command at Yarnell was so equally clueless about whether Yavapai County Public Works employee Paul Morin might have died in the fire or not that they took the time to add him to the post-deployment radio traffic “missing persons” lists.

          And the ASTONISHING thing is that for coming up on TWO YEARS now… and TWO full investigations… and at least ONE “Published” book whose publishers are chossing to call the “definitive account of the Yarnell Hill Fire”…

          …we STILL have no clue what happened to that dozer or its operator.

          All we have are the same bits and pieces of evidence that there WAS some kind of “emergency plan” that afternoon, and that it involved the dozer and ( perhaps ) Granite Mountain.

          Maybe the fact that this plan coming from Gary Cordes DID, in some way, involve Granite Moutain is the very reason we do NOT know more about it.

          >> Bob Powers also said…
          >>
          >> A SPGS1 is the same as the old Sector Boss position on a Division
          >> there could be 2 or 3 Sectors with Strike team leaders Each Sector
          >> could have Crews, Dozers, Engines.
          >> With out a Division Supervisor that SPGS1 would answer directly
          >> to OPS. So yes there is still a chain of command.

          Thank you. So that means other than the fact that someone WAS assigned to be ‘Division Z’ but they never bothered to actually be physically present in that Division to RUN that Division that day… the fact that a Structure Protection guy would be answering directly to an OPS is simply not that unusual.

          >> Bob Powers also said…
          >>
          >> I am having a little trouble with Ball the DOZB.
          >> If they were disengaging then moved back to the Lowboy
          >> and he took Radio the assignment was over. The Dozer was released.

          Yes. That is what appears to have happened.

          At or around the same moment that Frisby and Brown realized it was pointless to have the crew ‘lined out’ on that Cutover Trail and the only thing to do was get the hell off the fire and back to the Ranch House Restaurant “safety zone”… THAT is when it was “goodbye time” with the dozer.

          Brown wanted his radio back because at that moment… he really didn’t know if he would ever see this Paul Morin guy again.

          What the dozer was supposed to do after it loaded up on its LOBOY wasn’t even their concern. Frisby and Brown’s only attachment to this dozer was that they were TOLD to loan it one its men ( Cory Ball ) and one of its radios ( Brown’s extra BK handheld ).

          >> Bob Powers also wrote…
          >>
          >> Back at the RHR Ball received a new assignment but Had
          >> no Dozer unless he could find it.

          I believe the ‘new’ consensus is that Cory Ball probably received this NEW assignment to “scout dozer line to protect Glen Ilah” sometime between the moments when Brown had released the dozer from working the cutover trail ( and Brown had taken his radio back. ) and the dozer with operator Paul Morin and BR Hotshot Cory Ball aboard actually reached the ‘staging area’ that at the south end of the Sesame Clearing.

          It would have taken the dozer ( even at full speed ) at least FIVE to TEN minutes to make the trip from where it had been working on the Cutover Trail down to the south end of the Sesame Clearing where its LOBOY trailer was staged along with that other Blue Ridge Chase Truck with the Polaris Ranger Trailer attached.

          So it appears that BR Hotshot Cory Ball left the Cutover Trail iust ONE assignment from his own “A-Number-One” ( Frisby or Brown ).

          His ONLY assignment at that point, now that they were DONE with the dozer and it didn’t need Ball’s red-card anymore, was to move that BR Chase Truck with Trailer attached over to the RHR.

          By the time Cory Ball reached that south end of the Sesame clearing… he appears to have been given a SECOND assignment by Gary Cordes.

          Scout emergency dozer line to try and protect Glen Ilah.

          So now all Ball could do was hury up and try and do his FIRST task likcety-split and then get on the SECOND task.

          He never made it back to the dozer to even begin the “scouting” assignment, and we still have no idea if the dozer ever came OUT of there.

          >> Bob Powers also said…
          >>
          >> Again we do not know if the Dozer Moved on the Low Boy or
          >> Stayed in the cleared zone. I would say it loaded and moved
          >> it had no communications with the Fire overhead or the DOZB.

          It’s possible… but moved WHERE, exactly?

          We have videos that cover ALL the road traffic at certain locations and there is no sign of it. We have photographs that actually provide damn good coverage of that area in Yarnell. There was only ONE Highway. There is no sign of it.

          And it’s pretty hard to hide a LOBOY trailer with a a dozer sitting on it.

          Of course it could have ‘slipped between the cracks’ and not been photographed ( or even seen? ) by anyone… but that actually still falls into the “not likely” category.

          Besides… there is ( and always will be ) the fact that this dozer operator was added to the “missings persons” list.

          Even if he had no radio… Lakewood drive meets Highway 89 right in front of the Ranch House Restaurant. If a gigantic LOBOY with a dozer on it HAD emerged in that timeframe exiting Glen Ilah there were many, many FFs already there at the RHR that would have seen this happening.

          Apparently… no one did.

          >> Bob Powers also said…
          >>
          >> Balls Assignment was DOZB until released by the OPS/Fire
          >> why Frisby/Brown were telling him to move to the RHR is a
          >> little out of sink with the chain of command

          That’s a good point.

          It seems like the moment Brian Frisby and True Brown decided “enough is enough… we’re leaving” the following 3 things happened all at once…

          1. They told the BR Crew to RTO, evacuate back to Youth Camp, then move straight out of the area and down to the Ranch House Restaurant.

          2. True Brown asked for his radio back from dozer operator Paul Morin.

          3. Frisby or Brown told Ball to ride dozer down to bottom of Sesame area and then drive BR Chase with trailer over to the RHR.

          So at that point… Frisby and Brown were DONE with this dozer and with having anything to do with it and it seems like they didn’t feel like they needed anyone’s permission to make that decision.

          They decided to take their radio ( and their own crewmember ) back from this dozer and just get the hell OFF the Yarnell Hill Fire.

          >> Bob Powers also said…
          >>
          >> Also taking the Radio seem to indicate that the
          >> Dozer was released.

          Yes… but released by WHO?

          We still don’t know that either.

          If Gary Cordes was going to suddenly tell Cory Ball to “go scout emergency dozer line to protect Glen Ilah”… then maybe it wasn’t Cordes at all who “released” the dozer at first. Maybe Blue Ridge thought they had the authority to do that… or at least just wanted their radio and their crewmember back.

          >> Bob Powers also said…
          >>
          >> Every body was pulling back to RHR why would the Dozer sit
          >> out there with out a Supervisor or Communications

          WHY indeed.

          What PLAN was it that might have been keeping it there?

          This Gary Cordes plan?

          >> Bob Powers also wrote…
          >>
          >> this was a Green Operator in Fire I would assume he would load
          >> and get the hell out of there.

          Until we find out more about this Paul Morin dozer operator… I’m not sure we can assume he was a “green operator” just because somebody didn’t think the had the right holes punched on some ‘red-card’.

          Maybe he was quite experienced but his red-card had ‘lapsed’, or something.

          >> Bob Powers also said…
          >>
          >> Again I am assuming he would also return to the Equipment
          >> yard and not the RHR.

          The guy would NOT just LEAVE THE AREA without going through some kind of official checkout process, right?

          Just as its important for all FFs to CHECK IN on a fire… you are expected to CHECK OUT as well, right?

          That’s the problem.

          Following the deployment… there must have been SOME kind of “round robin” attempt to find out if ANY”ONE had seen this damn dozer come out of Glen Ilah.

          We still don’t have the details on that, either, but if no one knew where he was then there MUST have been a “call around” on the radio / cellphones to see if AN”YONE had seen the guy or a HUGE yellow metal thing hanging around somewhere not doing much.

          After the call-around… someone ( Todd Abel? ) now determined the guy was officially a MISSING PERSON and that’s when he was added to the list of people that DPS Helicopter Ranger 58 needed to be looking for.

          OPS1 Todd Abel mentions NONE of this is ANY of his interviews.

          So it if wasn’t the “Incident-within-an-Incident” IC Todd Abel doing this call-around to try and locate the dozer + operator guy… then WHO DID?

          WHO ended up calling Ranger 58 and adding “Dozer guy” to the missing persons list… and WHEN did that happen, exactly?

          Reply

          • First where dose the City Park there Equipment—Equipment Yard.

            Second The Fire Department would have all fire fighters and City Employees that operated Equipment Like Dozers Red Carded by May.
            And the Dozer under rental agreements with the State.
            So I contend Morin was a Green none fire trained operator.
            A qualified well trained Dozer Operator for Wild Land Fire could and would operate with out a DOZB.

            Third once the Dozer was back to the loboy and the Radio was taken he was released. Check in and time slips were something the operator may not have known if he was not understanding fire procedures.

            The same Dozer was later used that night which means it apparently moved some place and then relocated to put in the road to the deployment site with a new operator..

            Reply

            • No, Bob, you’ve got this wrong. See what I’ve written below and what I will eventually write further below.

              Reply

            • And, no it is not true that:

              “The same Dozer was later used that night which means it apparently moved some place and then relocated to put in the road to the deployment site with a new operator..”

              That same dozer was NOT used that night to put in that line to the deployment site.

              The SECOND dozer, the one in the photos at the Mini-Mart and the Air2Air video, is the one used to put in the dozer line.

              Reply

              • My mistake I was thinking that a new operator got on that Dozer that night so was it the next day or did they not use that Dozer again?

                Reply

                • The actual timesheet work orders show that another operator ( Donald Rezzonico) started another work shift on that same dozer at midnight and was then basically ‘on the clock’ on that same dozer all night long and on into daylight.

                  That would APPEAR to indicate the same dozer that Paul Morin had been operating all day Sunday was then the same dozer used to put in the dozer push out to the deployment site but with operator Donald Rezzonico instead.

                  Reply

                  • “The actual timesheet work orders show that another operator ( Donald Rezzonico) started another work shift on that same dozer at midnight and was then basically ‘on the clock’ on that same dozer all night long and on into daylight.”

                    Slaps head.

                    OK, I screwed that up. Same dozer, different operator.

                    Reply

                    • How much easer to do this research in the same room face to face oh well I was slapping my head as well we tend to get here just occasionally in circles.

                    • Thanks Bob!

                      And yeah, this would be a whole lot more coherent if we were all in a room with a table and our laptops (not that I have one) and talking too each other!

                    • We actually still don’t know… for sure and certain… whether that ‘second shift’ beign shown on that same dozer starting at midnight had anything to do with actually pushing that dozer line out to the deployment site.

                      There was ANOTHER DOZER on the fire by then… and THAT is the one that rolled in from May Machinery and was captured passing by the camera in the Panebaker Air Study videos.

                      Pushing a dozer line out to the deployment site wasn’t the ONLY work for a dozer that night, I don’t think.

                      There may have been lots of other things that Donald Rezzonico was doing in the wee hours of the morning with that dozer.

                      But for now, anyway, I think we CAN assume that this same dozer with this same serial number WAS the one that Paul Musser reports getting ‘tangle up in the power lines’ and was then also used to put in that dozer push from the BSR out to the deployment site.

                      I wonder if the daytime operator ( Paul Morin ) actually LEFT Yarnell when his shift ended… or whether he crashed up at the ICP?

                      One more thing to ask him.

          • Thanks for writing this up in such patient detail. And I agree with everything, except I would edit this:

            “Maybe the fact that this plan coming from Gary Cordes DID, in some way, involve Granite Moutain is the very reason we do NOT know more about it.”

            To read this:

            “Maybe the fact that this plan coming from Gary Cordes DID, in some way, involve Granite Moutain (and, apparently Paul Musser) is the very reason we do NOT know more about it.”

            Seriously.

            And I really appreciate your description of “the visuals.” I think that’s really important.

            As a matter of fact, every time I had asked myself something along the lines of “Why am I still so dubious of the possibility that the dozer got ‘staged’ on 89?”…….

            (and I have to add that this was almost a sub-conscious questioning process)

            ……my mind would, almost subconsciously, run through a bunch of “slides.” I never thought I had enough “slides,” so I never brought this questioning process to this “conversation,” but all the ones I DID have made it hard for me to ever get “comfortable” with that possibility.

            It would be like, “maybe, but I just don’t SEE it.”

            But when I read what you wrote, that almost unconscious questioning process that I had run through, every single time in the past, all of a sudden became conscious

            I’ve been scanning that scene, looking for that dozer, for a really really long time.

            Especially after seeing those photos taken over on 89 by Rick Tham that show the second dozer parked (or staged or whatever) in the parking lot in front of the Mini-Mart just before it was driven up to the ICP (I assume), as seen in the Air 2 Air video. You can see it from a long ways away, and it took up a lot of space, and had to have empty space in front of it in order to move forward to get out of the parking lot.

            Once I saw that, I knew what a dozer on a lo-boy would like in context and so I knew what to look for around the Ranch House Parking Lot.

            And I kept never seeing it anywhere around there.

            And, as I imagined it in that area, I might even, all things considered, given the traffic that was pouring through there, imagined it parked either in the parking lot (to get it off the road) or, if actually ON 89, probably there might even have been some cones around it to preserve the space around it, in case it had to be quickly moved.

            And even if I still haven’t seen that, I think you’re spot on in saying that anybody around there would have SURELY seen it if it had been there. It’s WAY easier than a white pick-up to identify!

            And there’s NO WAY it would have been sent out of that general area, at that time, given that Musser was trying to send as much stuff as he could possibly get hold of to send to Yarnell proper. Including the dozer that was already there.

            So that makes an even stronger case that whatever particular orders were given at that time to the dozer operator would have been more along the lines of “just stay put.”

            Especially because, AT THAT TIME, Cordes and Musser were both over on the northeast side of Yarnell, and I don’t think they had much SA as to exactly what the fire looked like in the Glen Ilah/southwest side of the fire.

            Who knows, maybe even when we see Ball’s helmet under that smoke column, Ball was not only looking at it for himself, but possibly also for Cordes/Musser. He was the closest thing they had to eyes on what the fire was doing there at that time.

            So it makes a lot of sense that, AT THAT TIME, their best choice was for the dozer, and its operator, to JUST STAY PUT.

            This leads into another line of thought, but I’m going to have to open up an interview and find the exact reference.

            Because I think the next most important dot/puzzle piece is the “tangled up with a power line” incident.

            Reply

            • And Bob’s comment above just reminded me of something else I thought about while I went over to the 7-11 and came back.

              While thinking about this whole chain-of-command thing.

              Apparently, the dozer was first assigned to Gary Cordes. Who, therefore had to stay with it and work it until Blue Ridge showed up with a DozB to whom he could “pass it off.”

              But, it seems to me that that “passing off” wasn’t a total complete permanent “passing off.”

              If his role, and authority and scope, was, as Bob says, equivalent to a Division Supervisor (at least until a Division Supervisor showed up and STAYED working that Division – which didn’t happen), it seems to me that the fact that he was originally assigned that dozer would mean that, …….

              …….when Blue Ridge decided it wasn’t needed in their operations anymore, and they “released” it (or possibly, more accurately released Ball’s DozB supervision of it), that would mean that, “chain-of-command”-wise, they would have “released” it BACK to Gary Cordes, not to the unbounded universe somewhere out there.

              Am I missing something here?

              If I’m not missing something here, that would mean that I think it’s almost probably that there would have had to have been some kind of communication from Blue Ridge/Ball to Gary Cordes that they didn’t need the dozer anymore and they were handing it back to Cordes.

              I’m having a harder and harder time imagining that, all of the (albeit weird) chain-of-comman stuff being in place (for reasons of accountability and contracting and finances and, again accountability) Blue Ridge would have had the authority to tell the dozer operator, “Hey, we don’t need you here anymore, so you’re free to go wherever and do whatever and get a soda or something.”

              That dozer was still on contract and that contract didn’t, in fact, come to an end until much much much later.

              Somebody on that fire still “owned” it, and, unless I’m really not getting something, that somebody was still Arizona Department of Forestry with it STILL assigned to Gary Cordes.

              Reply

              • Marti… yes… pretty safe to say that no one associated with Blue Ridge had the full, actual authority to ‘release’ that Yavapai County dozer from its contract to the point where the guy ( Paul Morin ) would consider himself either ‘off the clock’ or allowed to leave the fire.

                Blue Ridge had just been told circa 10:00 AM to loan Cory Ball out as HEQB/DOZB and then it was Ball who discovered the guy didn’t even have a radio. That’s when Tree offered up the spare handheld for the dozer guy.

                Later in the afternoon… Frisby and Brown just wanted their radio and their crew member (Ball) back.

                As far as they were concerned… once they got those two things back then control of the dozer was now defaulting back to whovever the heck HAD been running the dozer before they ever even got involved at 10:00 AM that morning.

                That would be Gary Cordes.

                Reply

          • So the next piece of this puzzle is……………………, unfortunately, difficult.

            There’s this thing that happened, somewhere, sometime, between the deployment and the putting in of the dozer line to the deployment site.

            It’s in the Paul Musser 8-16-13 ADOSH interview. And it doesn’t help that it’s really hard to legibly format. But I’ll give it my best shot. It starts with Paul Musser speaking:
            ———————————————-

            2399 The people off the ridge came to the deployment site and then started trying to find ground access. Uh, to get us in there. Still active fire going on structures and stuff. Uh, a lot of power lines down. Um, so we had to figure how we could get in and get around the power lines and stuff like that…
            2403
            2404 Q2: Right.
            2405
            2406 A: To gain ground access. Met with, uh, APS – several different people in APS to make sure that everything was dead. Which took us a while to do. ‘Cause we had confirmation that it was dead, but I couldn’t talk to the person that gave that confirmation, so…
            2410
            2411 Q2: Oh yeah.
            2412
            2413 A: So I had to talk to them personally that everything was dead, um, because we were gonna bring a dozer in to, uh, help clean up and create access. Tried to get them to cut the lines, they said just push it over and move on. Which then tangled up in the dozer and…
            2417
            2418 Q2: Right.
            2419
            2420 A: So we had to deal with a few of those things. But once we were able to clear access, um, and then we got the dozer in, uh, later that night. I don’t know what time it was – midnight maybe.

            So, because the second dozer didn’t start working until midnight, and the story of the powerline entanglement seems to put it, including all its complexity, quite a bit earlier than that, it’s kind of muddy, but when I saw those documents Joy supplied, that helped ME, at least, to think it’s pretty clear, finally, that the dozer that got tangled up in the power lines was the one that was still on contract til about 8 PM.

            I”m not looking at those documents at the moment, but I think I”m remembering that pretty accurately.

            The first dozer (operated by Morin) was still, operationally-speaking, still functioning on that fire til late in the evening.

            And then there’s about a three-hour gap, I think.

            And then the second dozer started up around midnight and, I currently think, put in the line to the deployment site.

            So that’s this puzzle piece.

            Where does it exactly fit in? I don’t know, but I think I know, relatively speaking.

            What does mean, given that the first dozer operator was put (by SOMEBODY at SOME TIME for SOME REASON) on the DPS list of people MIA before the DPS helicopter flew over the deployment site and they identified the deployment………..

            ………and then, possibly an hour and a half or two hours, seems to have gotten entangled in a power line, the cleaning up of this mess related to this having taken some time…………………

            ……..and then, apparently another dozer (because of the timing on ITS work-order) seems to have been the one that finally, was able to put in that dozer line, along about midnight – WAY after the first dozer had ended its work there, according to ITS work-order.

            So that’s my current reading of the Saga of the Dozers and their Operators.

            Your reading of this may come up different. And I’m quite interested in any different reading. But this is all we have, so far.

            Reply

            • So, as we have discussed above, I stand corrected.

              The dozer that put in the line to the deployment wasn’t the second dozer.

              It was the same dozer as we have been talking about.

              But we’re still talking about two different operators. And it still appears to me, at this point, that, given the timing and the work orders, Morin (the first operator) was still involved in that downed power line incident, and the second operator took over the dozer around midnight, when they actually finally started putting that line in.

              Too bad when Musser mentioned that in his interview, nobody actually asked him more about it, all things considered.

              Reply

              • >> Marti said…
                >> But we’re still talking about two different operators.

                Yes.

                Shift 1: 7 AM to 9 PM ( 14 hrs ) – Paul Morin
                Shift 2: MIDNIGHT to 2 PM ( 13 hrs ) – Donald Rezzonico

                AND…. we are talking about at least THREE different HEQB/DOZB supervisors…

                Shift 1 – Gary Cordes, then Cory Ball, then ?????
                Shift 2 – Todd Abel’s good friend Dean Stewart.

                It’s actually possible that Abel’s close friend Dean Stewart showed up soon enough to be the THIRD HEQB/DOZB working with Paul Morin that day… and was the one who helped Morin get untangled from the power lines.

                Dean Stewart hasn’t been interviewed by anyone.

                Not YET, anyway.

                See a new parent comment up above about this…

                http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xv/#comment-299932

                Reply

        • So, I’m going to chew a bit on this paragraph. Bob, you wrote:

          “Also taking the Radio seem to indicate that the Dozer was released. Every body was pulling back to RHR why would the Dozer sit out there with out a Supervisor or Communications this was a Green Operator in Fire I would assume he would load and get the hell out of there. Again I am assuming he would also return to the Equipment yard and not the RHR. Thus his where is he missing Dozer??????????”

          I’m in agreement that the radio was not reclaimed by Ball at the bottom of the Sesame clearing (the Sesame staging spot) but at the cutover, by Trew. With Ball accompanying the dozer to the staging spot, the dozer operator didn’t (theoretically) need a radio.

          “why would the Dozer sit out there with out a Supervisor or Communications”

          WTKTT and I are saying that, somewhere/sometime between the cutover and the Sesame staging spot, Cordes made, over the radio, his assignment to Ball to check out the possibility of putting in that dozer line to the southwest of Glen Ilah, and, since Ball had to get the Blue Ridge Utility Truck to the Ranch House Restaurant, FIRST, Cordes (in consultation with Musser) told him they knew of an ATV sitting at the YFD that they would acquire and get Ball over to pick that up.

          So the dozer was never actually “released.” It was “handed back” from Blue Ridge/Ball to Cordes. About the same time Cordes (and, I think, Musser) were coming up with that plan that would require that dozer.

          And so, WTKTT and I have been saying that Ball left the dozer at the staging spot and headed down to the Ranch House Restaurant, to park the truck, go pick up the ATV (having been given a ride by Musser), and head back up ASAP to the dozer. And, therefore the obvious thing for the dozer to do, at that time, was STAY PUT.

          And, up until this afternoon, what we had in the way of narratives and photos supported that.

          Neat.

          HOWEVER.

          The newest narrative, from Joy’s source, has just thrown a bit more complexity into that, because it describes the dozer being hauled on the lo-boy in and out of Glen Ilah (whatever exactly that means), but I don’t know exactly when that chaotic scene was happening.

          That scene has atv’s, “fire trucks”, “forest trucks” “all over.” I’m having a hard time, inside my mind, identifying all of that at any time before when all those atv’s, “fire trucks” and “forest trucks” came down from the Shrine/Youth Camp area.

          There just wasn’t that much of that kind of vehicles even possibly scrambling all over Glen Ilah until they were even in the neighborhood.

          Which they weren’t at around 4:15, which is when WTKTT and I think that photo with Ball in it was taken, given what the smoke column looked like.

          By the time Ball went back into Glen Ilah on the YFD ATV, that column had bent over and the entire area as far as you could see, was completely enshrouded in smoke.

          “Again I am assuming he would also return to the Equipment yard”

          No, that didn’t happen because he still “belonged” to Gary Cordes, who (along with Paul Musser) had a plan that required him to stay in that area in order to carry forward that plan.

          Does this help make sense?

          Reply

          • And I still don’t think the dozer was ever, actually, staged on 89. Because I agree with WTKTT that I’ve never seen it there. And it’s not exactly a Volkswagon.

            So I truly don’t know what “the bulldozer came out” actually means.

            Maybe it did actually get onto 89 and park somewhere where we haven’t seen it so far.

            But it still wasn’t “released.” Gary Cordes still “owned” it, and I think Cory Ball was, again or still, its Dozer Boss.

            Reply

            • Marti… big fat “Copy that” on BOTH of these last two messages you posted. That’s the same synopsis I would have given of what we were ‘assuming’ before this new evidence from Joy showed up.. and I am having the exact same reactions to that evidence that you are.

              Example: Even the Sun City Engine(s) were up there in the hills west of Highway 89 ( and not in Glen Ilah ) and they were doing their own ‘evacuating just in time’… so not even those Sun City guys would have been “running all over” Glen Ilah in the timeframe talked about.

              I’m talking about Jerry Thompson and crew… who were also supposed to be the SECOND lookout position for everyone working in the Harper Canyon area.

              Those Sun City / Thompson crews and Type 6 brush trucks were NOT in Glen Ilah, per se.

              I was away from a desktop all day so I’m only now actually processing all this new evidence.

              More later.. but just wanted to “Affirm” what you just wrote.

              Reply

          • And the other important thing, in terms of the timing of all of this is that Joy’s source says this (and, actually, come to think of it, I’m not sure if these are Joy’s actual words or her sources actual words):

            “In a Panic Voice the blue helmet man came up to them appx six people and stated “You got 10 minutes. Grab Your Stuff and get the hell out.” ”

            From the YIN:

            ““Ball got a quad from FD, and was trying to get on the dozer line to tie in w/ Justin to check it people evacuating trying to get out. At manzanita and lockwood fire was already in the subdivision.”

            From Cory Ball’s notes release in 2014 by the SAIT:

            “Acquire ATV: travel into subdivision back to Dozer line. Multiple structures fully engulfed and multiple spot fires in subdivision.

            Notify structure group one about fire and structures on corner of manzanita and lockwood
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
            Started evacuations of subdivision.”

            This whole scenario sounds a whole lot more like what Joy’s source is describing than it does in relationship to the photo that includes Ball standing there looking up a whole ‘nuther smoke column.

            So, therein lies the difficulty.

            Reply

            • So here’s another possible scenario.

              Ball and the dozer came down to the Sesame staging area, while Ball got the assignment from Cordes/Musser to, after he parked the BR truck/trailer at the RHR, jump into Musser’s truck, go over to the YFD, get on their ATV, and go back up into Glen Ilah. While the message to Morin was “Just Stay Put.”

              Which Ball did, then heading down Manzanite until he came to that spot where he got out of his truck to get a view of the fire (and possibly pass that on to Cordes/Musser, since they didn’t have their own “eyes on the fire”), at which point he was photographed (around 4:15 PM) looking up at that smoke column. Which was basically going up.

              Meanwhile Morin waited, and then, getting a little nervous, all things considered, loaded the dozer onto the lo-boy, just in case.

              Meanwhile, at the same time Cory Ball parked the truck, Musser picked him up and delivered him to the Yarnell Fire Department at 4:27 PM (the same time the Yarnell-Gamble video was captured), where he mounted the ATV and headed back up into Glen Ilah.

              Where everything was chaos. He made it up to the Manzanita/Lakewood intersection (at 4:47, according to his photo), when possibly other vehicles may actually have been driving around in there, also, maybe even about by the same time Morin had said to himself, “F*** it, I’m getting outa here!!!” and had headed down, and they found each other (or maybe even not, because we don’t know that), and a bunch of people to whom Ball said “Get outta here, you’ve got ten minutes” (which was by then totally true) and then they both got back out of there and the dozer had to find some place to park somewhere in the traffic chaos somewhere around 89.

              And in the midst of all that chaos, nobody saw him (maybe even Cory Ball) and as the list of MIAs was being quickly thrown together, his “dozer operator” got added to that list, because, well……….nobody knew and nobody had any radio contact with him.

              Until someone realize Morin and his dozer were, actually, NOT MIA, and then Morin eventually got his NEXT assignment.

              This kinda sorta makes sense to me at this point.

              Only running it by Joy’s source can confirm or fix it.

              We still need more information.

              Reply

  84. OK, here is my best explanation for my rant. I have a long history of attorney’s using the law and the threat of the law against average people and it especially grinds on me very badly when they use the threat of a lawsuit in order to stifle and muzzle people from expressing their opinions and views because the truth is, most people, unless they have a great deal or very little as I do, are in the middle somewhere and in most cases the simple threat of a lawsuit can have a very chilling effect on just about everybody so attorneys win through default because normal people can’t stand up to that kind of intimidation because they have a little bit and they might lose it, on attorney’s fees if nothing else defending themselves in a rigged system..

    I hate attorney’s and just about everything they stand for, very few of them have any integrity or morals at all. Just look at what the government attorneys are doing with Blue Ridge and the other federal fire fighters, the truth isn’t important to them, the deaths of the GMIHC aren’t important to them, preventing future deaths of wildland firefighters aren’t important to them, and if that doesn’t do it for you, just look at the mockery both sides are making of this issue in court, backed up by who? Another attorney in the form of the judge who is letting them get away with playing non-stop games, that judge doesn’t care any more than the attorneys do who are representing both sides, it is all about lining their pockets and perpetuating the system they control and manipulate for their own selfish interests.

    I don’t like attorney’s, no…I hate attorneys, they have no honor or moral compass, just look at how unethical so many prosecuting attorneys are, withholding evidence, putting lying police on the stand, covering up misconduct. Thank God for cell phone cameras, maybe the world will start to change.

    And Elizabeth Nowicki does what? She trains more attorneys to do the same thing while she perpetuates lies about Fred’s career as a hotshot because she thinks she got into a pissing contest with RTS over issues on this thread. EN should be thanking Fred for his service to this country and for protecting billions of dollars of natural resources while risking his own life countless times in the service of this great nation (can I get a hallelujah? and an amen?)

    Reply

    • Oh, and one more thing. What did RTS and Fred do to justify this attack on their work history? They donated their time to try and bring a greater understanding to the deaths of the GMIHC.

      I have some very bad news for all of the deniers out there.

      1. Eric Marsh and Jesse Steed had 100% control over the GMIHC, and almost all of them died very horrible deaths after several minutes of sheer paralyzing terror at what they were facing. That’s what it means to be in charge. The crew boss gets the first seat in the bus saved for him or her, they get to lead the crew into the restaurant in a crew line wearing their colors with their heads held high, they get to be introduced as the CREW BOSS and they get the honor of being the crew boss, but guess what, with all of that and much, much, more, they also get the responsibility when things go wrong. That’s the way it works. And if you are a crew leader, you had better have that fact straight in your head, or you should voluntarily stop being your crew’s leader.

      2. The sole survivor of the crew told the world what the attitude towards safety was on that crew that had to have been taught to him by Eric Marsh. And if Eric Marsh did not personally teach it to him, he approved it being taught to him. And you already know what they was.

      End of story. I don’t actually need to know more to know why the GMIHC died, but I hope to learn more. Any questions?

      Reply

      • And I forgot the greatest honor of all that can be bestowed on a hotshot crew boss, in my case starting when I was 23. That is to be called Dad by your crew, or in my case, some of the older guys who were as much as a decade older than me who couldn’t bring themselves to call me dad, called me Pappy.

        Most people who are reading this blog probably understand the level of responsibility that comes with the Dad (or Mom) title. And even though I was always interested in building my reputation and that of my crew as kick ass wildland firefighters, I never forgot that my primary responsibility was to take care of my crew (And if you buy my book after I find a publisher, I give several moving examples in it of how I redeemed that awesome responsibility).

        I understand Eric Marsh’s crew called him Dad as well.

        Reply

  85. Reply to Joy A. Collura post on June 15, 2015 at 5:08 pm

    >> Joy A. Collura said…
    >>
    >> Kathy Hunter Glover got a new laptop because for no reason her other one just
    >> began to act up so she is heading home that has all the photos so I can TRY
    >> and get number 96 and number 98 and look for anymore Blue Ridge photos.
    >> She took that photo at Chase’s house.
    >>
    >> keep you posted.

    Thank you, Joy.

    You are way ahead of me.

    That is exactly what I was going to ‘ping’ you about and ask you to look into.

    Now that photo 097.jpg proves that Blue Ridge Hotshot ( assumed to be Cory Ball ) was standing right there at Fountainhill and Lakewood at that exact time… what would be REALLY good to also know is WHY he had stopped there… and in WHAT vehicle he was traveling at the time.

    We have already seen photos 085 and 089 and 097. That means there are at least ALL of the following other photos around somewhere that might show something more…

    Photos with sequence numbers BEFORE 085?
    086, 087, 088 and then 090, 091, 092, 093, 094, 095, 096
    Photos with sequence numbers AFTER 097?
    Like 098, 099, 0100, etc?

    In photo 097… other evidence already suggests this must have been when Blue Ridge Hotshot and acting HEQB/DOZB ( dozer boss ) Cory Ball was moving the Blue Ridge Chase Truck with trailer attached from where it had been staged at the bottom of the Sesame clearing area ( where Lakewood and Manazanita pavement ends ) over to the Ranch House Restaurant where it would then be photographed by Mr. Tom Story.

    It would be nice if there could be some additional photographic confirmation of that.

    If there is even just one other person with a BLUE Helmet in any of these photos… then that other Blue Ridge Hotshot is most likely this mysterious ‘other person’ that Cory Ball himself mentions in his Unit Log when he says that SPGS1 Gary Cordes wanted an emergency dozer line scouted to try and protect Glen Ilah and that he gave this assignment to “Cory Ball and ONE OTHER”.

    We still don’t know who that “ONE OTHER”. was.

    Even if any other photos of Kathy’s don’t actually show any firefighters… they MIGHT show VEHICLES, including the one that Blue Ridge Hotshot was using at that time. That’s also very important to know given the timeframe for these photos.

    Also.. while Kathy’s photo 097.jpg only the shows the very TOP of that Blue Ridge Hotshot’s helmet… it ALSO shows the top of someone else’s head standing right next to him and ( apparently ) having a discussion with him.

    I wonder if Kathy, or anyone else who was there including that ‘other head’ seen talking to the Hotshot, recalls that conversation and anything that might have been SAID at that time.

    It matters… especially if anyone recalls this Blue Ridge Hotshot mentioning what HE was planning on doing at that time, or even what he might be planning on doing right AFTER he finished moving that vehicle.

    Reply

  86. OK, John Dougherty told me to knock it off and leave Elizabeth alone, and I learned how to follow orders as a hotshot.. So I am done with Elizabeth, but I think she should leave Fred’s fire record alone, Fred didn’t kill his crew through an arrogant disregard for safety, Bob and Fred aren’t the issue here.

    Reply

  87. Just for Info all of a sudden the yarnellhillfireblog now needs a name and access code
    Must have really pissed someone off—OH WELL

    Reply

  88. The mysterious Paul Morin…asking around…simple as that…guess what…his wife works for the county…maybe someone will reach him some way some day the IMPORTANCE but doubtful he will ever speak up…that is the local lo-down on the guy.

    Reply

    • Thanks for this, Joy.

      I”d love to ask a HUGE number of questions to him.

      But since that’s most likely impossible, and I can understand that, all things considered, I’m trying to determine what I think are the MOST useful questions.

      And if I could, hypothetically, ask him my questions (which I understand is not possible, but I’m just thinking about this whole thing), I would really FIRST want to help him understand that my FIRST priority relates to his SAFETY circumstances on that fire, given what we know and given what has been tightly licked and sealed and stashed away in some envelope, regarding this.

      My first most important question would be, does he ever go by the name “Justin,” because that is who Cory Ball refers to in his narrative. And Cory Ball’s narrative is our most basic source regarding this whole affair.

      After that, my second most important question would, simply be, whether or not he ever felt his life was in danger on that fire. Just a simple yes or no would do it for me.

      (I’m writing this while I’m listening to Mike Malone tearing Jeb Bush totally into shreds on 1350 AM Progressive Talk Radio in Albuquerque, so there’s that).

      I think those two simple questions would pretty much do it for me, even though I would love to ask him more, but, at this point in time, I can totally understand why he would be less than delighted to answer them.

      Reply

    • Reply to Joy A. Collura post on June 15, 2015 at 5:29 pm

      >> Joy A. Collura said…
      >>
      >> The mysterious Paul Morin…asking around…simple as that…guess
      >> what…his wife works for the county…

      In some of the Yavapai County PUBLIC newsletters… there is PUBLIC mention of a “Jane Morin” as being the one who is really good at doing the PUZZLES in the Yavapai County newlsetter and regularly ‘wins’ these puzzle contests.

      The newsletter itself says this ‘Jane Morin’ who is good at the puzzles in the PUBLIC newsletter works for the Yavapai County assessor’s office.

      Here is just one link that is PUBLICLY mentioning ‘Jane Morin’…

      Yavapai County News and Views – Newsletter – July/September 2014
      http://www.yavapai.us/hr/files/2012/03/NewsAndViewsNewsletter.pdf

      On page 16 ( the first page of the PUZZLE section )…
      ————————————————————————
      First of all, CONGRATULATIONS to Jane Morin of the Assessor’s
      Office, for winning the Back page Puzzle in the last issue!
      ————————————————————————

      >> Joy A. Collura also said…
      >>
      >> maybe someone will reach him some way some day the IMPORTANCE
      >> but doubtful he will ever speak up.

      I really can’t think of one single, good reason why some guy who was just running a bulldozer in Yarnell on June 30, 2013, wouldn’t feel free to speak about his experiences that day… to ANYONE. At ANY time.

      Seriously. I can’t.

      If he, himself, was almost killed that day I would think it would be a story he would WANT to be telling to just about anybody who wanted to hear it.

      But I’ve never set foot in the lovely state of Arizona.

      Maybe this obvious “good old boy” network operating in Arizona really is almost as bad as the damn MAFIA, or something, if not even WORSE.

      Reply

      • WTKTT, you wrote:

        “I really can’t think of one single, good reason why some guy who was just running a bulldozer in Yarnell on June 30, 2013, wouldn’t feel free to speak about his experiences that day… to ANYONE. At ANY time.”

        I can. Easily.

        Because somebody in a relatively high place in the Central Yavapai Fire Department, or maybe even in the State Forestry Division, knowing what they knew and what it could mean…………………………………………………………….

        ……put some serious pressure on somebody with clout in some office of Yavapai County……………………

        …………to tell Morin to keep his mouth shut. Or else.

        I have no problem, whatsoever, all things considered, believing that.

        Reply

        • I’m not nearly as unassuming as my previous post would indicate.

          LOL.

          If there was an ’emoticon’ that represented “tongue firmly placed in cheek”… I would have added it to that post.

          Of COURSE someone could have “gotten to this guy”.

          Wouldn’t it be interesting to find out if that is the case.

          Once again.. we are at NO time talking about Private Corporations or ‘Exxon Mobile’ here.

          We are talking about PUBLIC employees on the PUBLIC payroll.

          It should be easy to find out if any PUBLIC employee is under some kind of GAG ORDER from his employer(s)… and then find out WHY.

          Reply

    • in plain English and in Spanish…thank you Brit Rosso for your words in the start of the video

      Reply

      • Some notable quotes from this video made by the official Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center…

        “We want to encourage EVERYONE to TALK about the Yarnell Incident”.
        “We feel it is IMPORANT for you to TALK about it”.
        “Learn all you can about the incident”.
        “Have a respectful dialogue about it”
        “Learn to respect others’ opinions, even if they differ from your own.”
        “We will be LEARNING from this incident for YEARS TO COME”.

        Reply

  90. **
    ** NEW UPDATE SCHEDULE FOR ALJ HEARING FILE

    There have been NO new documents posted in the “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” ALJ Hearing File since last May 28… but someone HAS gone in and now updated what their own page even says they plan on doing with regards to timely updates.

    Someone has REMOVED the public notice that said the page was supposed to be updated with new document filings received by close of business every Friday.

    No such promise anymore.

    Now the only promise being made is that this public page will be updated “periodically”.

    https://sites.google.com/site/yarnellhillinformation/home/yarnellhillaljhearingfile

    Arizona law DOES require the filings in this case to be public information. They HAVE to make the filings available on demand… but looks like they have decided to cut back on the online updating and just drop back to “when we get around to it” mode.

    The SILENCE over this THIRD and most recent cancellation of McDonough’s deposition is still DEAFENING.

    You can bet a LOT is going on ‘behind the scenes’ right now… but no one wants the public to hear about it quite yet.

    Maybe they think they can keep everything under wraps this time until AFTER the second anniversary passes.

    Reply

    • “The SILENCE over this THIRD and most recent cancellation of McDonough’s deposition is still DEAFENING.”

      I totally agree.

      And also this:

      “Maybe they think they can keep everything under wraps this time until AFTER the second anniversary passes.”

      Last year was pretty dicey, with all the lawsuits getting filed right before it.

      On the other hand, I’ve been spending some serious time looking back at videos and stuff, mostly looking for FOOTAGE I hadn’t seen before. There’s some media folks who have been pretty relentless……….

      It will be interesting to see what happens this year. I haven’t seen any announcements of anything other than the Yarnell Fun Run.

      Reply

      • Well… right about NOW ( the middle of the month ) is when most of the “feature stories” that are going to run around the 30th are probably being actively interviewed and/or written.

        It will be interesting to see what kind of reporting emerges surrounding this second anniversary of the tragedy.

        Reply

  91. Elizabeth said,

    “What are you doing? What is going on?”

    And I said, “You are attacking the IM blog and Bob and Fred, and I don’t think you should do that”

    I don’t know what Fred did or didn’t do on the Clear Creek Fire in Idaho and I don’t care and neither should you, but as I have said before he was a hotshot crew boss for a really long time in a business where they eat their young, and kill off the sick and wounded. Now, every crew boss makes decisions while fighting a wildfire that their malcontents may always disagree with, because those individuals are what we who are in the business of fighting wildfire or used to be in that business technically call “pussy’s”, although we use that term in a non gender specific way. Because I have worked with a lot of women who would be able to kick my ass, at least by working or hiking up the mountain.

    And every hotshot crew has some malcontents and rabble rousers on it, federal hiring guidelines are so restrictive you always end up with some bad apples. It sounds to me like Elizabeth found some bad apples from one of Fred’s old crews who started emailing her on the side talking shit. And now she is trying to make apple pie out of those bad apples and feed it to the world as her signature dish.

    Also like said before, Fred and I aren’t friends. Fred and I weren’t friends back it the day, we were however, hotshot crew bosses who worked on adjoining districts, Fred on the Tonto, me on the Mighty Coconino. So…I fought fire with Fred, many times. And if Fred were a bad crew boss or a dangerous crew boss I would have heard about it, because wildland firefighters like to gossip as much as any quilting circle except they call it “bullshitin” with the boys.”

    I did not get any of my information from Fred, I got it from people who are currently hunkered down behind the wire in Prescott, but they don’t agree with the common groupthink that the best way to learn the lessons learned from the Yarnell Hill Fire is by keeping the shortcomings of the crew a secret. And in the future, when my Yarnell Hill Fire chapter is finally done, you are gong to find that out, because I am going to write about things Fred could not possibly know.

    Now if anybody wants to blame somebody for letting the cat out of the bag, blame our hapless hero that idiot McDonut, he is the one who told the world what the philosophy towards safety on the GMIHC was, and you all know it so I don’t have to repeat it again.

    Now, we don’t have the time or the interest to go back and re-litigate every fire Fred fought with some malcontents and bad apples from his crew because it isn’t important. Because one thing we know for sure is, Fred didn’t kill his entire hotshot crew except for the village idiot. In fact, Fred didn’t kill any of his crew. So Fred is not the issue here.

    Now Bob and I have become internet friends as a result of this blog, but he doesn’t have any information about the GMIHC, maybe other than what hundreds and maybe even thousands of wildland firefighters also have, and that is what I already wrote about on this blog.

    The fact that Eric Marsh got caught smoking” weed and drinking alcohol with some of the Globe Hotshots, which included the saw teams when he was in charge as a detailer and he got them sent home from the fire and disbanded early that year so the district could clean house and get rid and the terminal screw ups, is not a secret.

    And there are Situational Screw Ups and then there are Terminal Screw Ups in life. A good manager or supervisor can work with the Situational Screw Ups and make them better, but you can’t do much with the Terminal Screw Ups except send them on down the road kicking a can, and that is what happened to Eric Marsh. Everybody knows that in the wildland firefighting business. You can’t keep something like a hotshot crew getting caught smokin’ dope on the fire line with their supervisor a secret. The key point in that sentence is that Darrell Willis, being one of the good ole boys in the network, knew all of the details of what Eric Marsh did when he hired him and then promoted him.

    In my opinion, the only reason Darrell Willis would do that with somebody who had been blackballed and fired (even if unofficially, as in resign now and get out of her and I won’t have to do the paperwork and you won’t have an unfavorable termination on your record) by the USFS is so he would own him lock stock and barrel.

    Darrell Willis had a 43 year old hotshot who could not get a job any where else in wildland firefighting who was in the twilight of his hotshot career with a skill set and a resume that would NOT had gotten him a free cup of coffee in the public sector in the palm of his hand.

    I have always known there was one reason why Eric Marsh ordered his crew out of the black and that is because Darrell Willis either ordered him to, or Marsh knew that is exactly what Willis expected him to do or else. And now I have a second reason, Marsh was a Terminal Screw Up who had a history of making poor life decisions. But the blank check he had with Willis and the clueless Prescott Fire Department gave him a platform to build not a Type 1 crew, but an Eric Marsh cult of young men who thought Marsh knew how to be a hotshot.

    So…why don’t all of us keep our eye on the ball and try to figure out if there are more than two reasons why the GMIHC left the black and if anyone else shares any CONTRIBUTING FACTORS responsibility other than Willis, the fire team and the Arizona State Forestry Division. Because yes, the only ones right now who are responsible for the causal factors are Eric Marsh and unfortunately…Jesse Steed.

    Now, Elizabeth, quit attacking Bob, Fred, and this blog or I am going to attack you.

    I don’t like attorney’s in the first place.

    And you don’t have to go to http://www.alexvakulalaw.com to find that out, just Goggle Alex Vakula and you will see the web site I built for him 3 years ago is now synonymous with his name and his law practice. He thought he was the baddest man in the room, but he hasn’t been able to make me take down his web site yet and he is a big deal lawyer in Arizona and the number 3 (the last time I looked) honcho in the Arizona State Bar Association and none of his process servers have been able to catch me yet…I know all of the tricks, bunch of fucking amateurs. I am after all, a retired federal agent who worked undercover and ran undercover operations for years. And I’m afraid I might be morphing from a Situational Asshole to a Terminal Asshole. I am a very fragile person, so don’t fuck with me…Elizabeth.

    Reply

    • What do you think WTKTT, is this blog starting to get as nasty as some of the others you have worked on, or are we still a pleasant walk in the park?

      Reply

  92. **
    ** BLUE RIDGE HOTSHOT CORY BALL AT FOUNTAINHILL RD. AND LAKEWOOD DRIVE.

    Here is a public copy of that photograph that re-ignited the discussion about this mysterious “emergency dozer line” to protect Glen Ilah, what OPS2 Paul Musser’s involvement in that might have been, and whether that really did have anything to do with why Granite Mountain deciding to leave the safe black.

    The FIRST photo at the link below is the one that accidentally captured a Blue Ridge Hotshot standing in the road at the interesection of Fountainhill Road and Lakewood Drive, in a timeframe that could ONLY mean this was Blue Ridge Hotshot and acting HEQB/DOZB Cory Ball.

    The first photo is 097.jpg ( Shows Blue Ridge Hotshot standing in the road )
    The second photo is 085.jpg ( taken 30 minutes earlier at same spot ).

    YouTube Video Title: BR-Hotshot-on-Lakewood

    Direct link to video…

    http://youtu.be/JbImy5s8GpM

    YouTube ABOUT information…
    ————————————————————————–
    These TWO photographs were taken at the intersection of Fountainhill Road and Lakewood Drive. The FIRST photograph shows the Helmet of a Blue Ridge Hotshot at the very bottom edge. Based on the proximity of the smoke plume and other evidence… the only Blue Ridge Hotshot who could have been at this location at this time was acting HEQB/DOZB Cory Ball.

    The SECOND photo was taken at the same location but almost exactly 30 minutes earlier than the first photo.
    —————————————————————————-

    Reply

  93. Don’t you get it…if we pretend Eric Marsh was a squared away crew boss and Jesse Steed didn’t cave to his dangerous commands because he was a good hotshot and former Marine and that crazy egomaniacal Marsh would have ended his career with a family to be responsible for just like he apparently did his former assistant (over some bullshit hotel points that were ethical, I collected hotel points all of the time and went on a long vacation on them when I retired, and Uncle Sam didn’t care and he is an asshole) we won’t ever get to the true lessons learned and save lives in the future..

    Bob thinks a lot like I do, except he was a lot more careful and I already told you last year I remember Fred as being a squared away crew boss and regardless of what you think, they never killed any of their crew.

    And we are going to have to face the facts here…Eric Marsh killed himself and 18 other wildland firefighters who were basically a bunch of kids by being criminally arrogant, reckless and because he violated all of the rules all of the time, whereas I just violated some of the rules some of the time, and I was a fucking cowboy raised on FIGHTING FIRE AGRESSIVELY but providing for safety first in out of control program hyper program on steroids and I think Marsh was nuts…but I still identify with the guy, I just want to bitch slap him.

    Now…as WTKTT told you, I want to be the baddest man in the room, I want some coverage on your shit blog. You will have to get out the pliers to find out my sources but they aren’t Bob or Fred…so fuck off.

    Here is a news flash for you…our hapless hero McDonut told the world why the GMIHC died. They had a learned culture that preached and practices that the rules were hillbilly because they were a lot smarter than that…case closed. Wake the fuck up and smell the coffee. Now…why don’t you make like a tree and get out of here! (Back to the Future)

    P.S., thank you for your thoughts Marti…and you do know that I use the term Pothead with great affection since I am now a progressive person who thinks weed should be legalized nation wide because I don’t think it is as destructive as alcohol is to our society….right? And I do know it helps a lot of people, like those little kids with those seizure disorders, those stories break my heart.

    Reply

      • And PS Gary

        I hope you are reading what we have been writing today, because it’s really kind of a block-buster…………

        Reply

      • I do not support the delivery of Gary but I am disappointed. learning EN is tied to this other blog…why then if you view the blog on I’M ask for photos from me that people on here received..I no longer want any communications from Elizabeth Nowicki online and all.communications must be made in person because I have comprehension concerns via cyberspace. I am sorry lasst night I was looking up someone from Yarnell site n found this one but wish I had not…sad. I am very sorry Gary for sharing about it here but I was disappointed by the smoke gun rumor gossip labels …please forgive me because I did not want you to have this tone…I never had a father who gave tones .
        Y daddy was always happy or even happier during happy hour…than a happy drunk. I did not think anyone would even see what I wrote because of the word gossip I wqs bummed and shared…again I am.sorry Gary.

        Reply

        • I hear yah, Joy, also.

          I never was in a position like yours regarding EN. A little bit close to that, but not as close as you. including your vulnerability.

          I got just close enough that I realized I was dealing with a bit of crazy that I didn’t have time or energy to deal with. And, actually, that took quite awhile. And ate up quite a bit of energy. And mostly that happened right here.

          And I’m not quite sure why Gary has sky-rocketed so much on this. But I’m sure he has his own reasons. All things considered.

          Whatever, EN has brought this hailstorm upon herself. For what ever reasons.

          Her credibility is zilch. Including what she is saying about Brendan most recently.

          Sadly.

          Reply

          • What ever Gary says he has a reason—Maybe the attack on Hot Shots was a response. you do not want to join in the conversation on that Blog If the owner will even let your statements in. No use opening yourself to attack.

            Reply

      • Yes, BOOM goes the dynamite, I do feel better, kind of like a colon cleansing. with colon blow like they used to advertise on SNL.

        Reply

    • Gary~

      OK since you said this:

      “P.S., thank you for your thoughts Marti…and you do know that I use the term Pothead with great affection since I am now a progressive person who thinks weed should be legalized nation wide because I don’t think it is as destructive as alcohol is to our society….right? And I do know it helps a lot of people, like those little kids with those seizure disorders, those stories break my heart.”

      And since you know my HIGHLY EXPERIENCED thoughts about using pot in situations in which one knows one needs to be RESPONSIBLE……………

      ……………….which equals JUST DON’T DO IT…………

      Do you currently think the problem with that regarding the Yarnell Hill Fire was that he/they may have been doing that that day………

      …………….or that the problem with that was that that kind of decision-making qualities on the part of Eric Marsh showed that he was equally capable of making seriously dumb and stupid and reckless decisions on a fire, even though this one happened before he was crowned the Supervisor of the Granite Mountain Hotshots?

      Because that’s actually what I was thinking after I read your MOAB (and yes I’ve actually been to Moab) post.

      Since what wrote what you wrote above, I think I deserve a response to this question. Even though I won’t hold it against you if you don’t respond.

      Because I support your decision to quit addictively posting here (which I have basically said I will also as of July 1) so that you can get the last chapter of your book written so that we can read it. Really, Gary, I (selfishly) support your efforts to do that.

      And, in order to get that done, I’m willing to commit, cyberly, to sending you (either figuratively or literally) tamales, even though they’ll be from burque, which I happen to think rivals Santa Fe in that arena, and doesn’t cost as much $$ to get them.

      I hate to say it but I think Santa Fe is, relatively speaking, over-rated. Even though my dad grew up there and I, once, was seriously insanely committed to buying that house in which he did that, and which was, at that time, on the southern border of that city and had nothing between it and far-away burque.

      Reply

      • OK. Since reading what I just posted above proves that I’m approaching braindead and need to go to bed, I apologize and commit myself to going to bed.

        Namaste!

        Reply

        • Marti–I will respond here. Yes I believe that the past things that Marsh did were a eye opener to his personality.
          The Federal Government would never hire him as any thing and I believe he was marked as undesirable as an Employee or a Supervisor by the FS.
          You just do not do what he did on duty and continue working for the Government.
          Even Using drugs off duty or being arrested for DUI Alcohol or Marijuana will get you terminated from a Government Job.

          What he did in my book is a sign of a lack of professionalism as a Fire suppression supervisor Squad Boss and above. That kind of decision making will not work in a work place where peoples lives are on the line.

          I am surprised he was hired by Prescott City as a Supervisor.
          There is a lot more to this story.

          I hope you do not stop after July 1 I for one like your research and comments.

          Reply

          • Thanks, Bob. I definitely think I’m getting it. Appreciate your patience.

            I probably won’t TOTALLY leave July 1. I probably COULDN’T.

            But I really need to get out of this uncomfortable comfort zone and change my game. I need a new normal. Seriously.

            I need to get MOVING, in a whole number of ways.

            Reply

      • Thank you for your thoughts on the tamales but I think we should go get some when I get to ABQ.. El Merendero just has a special place in my memory because we would drive by their factory on our way to the Caja Del Rio to do project work (they were on Airport Rd. at the time). And the whole crew would go in and buy tamales or burritos fresh made while we could watch rows of women in bright white smocks rolling tamales at row after row of gleaming stainless steel tables. Just a little walk down memory lane.

        No, I don’t believe for one second Marsh was high or drunk on the Yarnell Hill Fire but his actions on the Clear Creek Fire just so how flawed his decision making process could be. But to me, the real take-a-way is how much that event meant that Willis owned Marsh because Marsh’s options where so limited because of his actions on the Clear Creek Fire.

        If you have been watching the coverage of the prison break out, they talk about guards doing small favors for inmates that become more much greater over a period of time and after a while, the inmate owns the prison guard. Now that is not a very good analogy but it is the best I could do right now. I think Marsh had to do what Willis wanted on the Yarnell Hill Fire…go to Yarnell to help with structure defense etc.. because Willis owned Marsh…totally.

        And if you think Santa Fe is overrated, you obviously haven’t walked around the plaza on Christmas Eve in a light snow and looked at the real (with a candle in the paper bag) farolitos on the Spanish style roofs all over downtown. And yes, I do know ABQ comes in second place and some people would even say first place…but Santa Fe can be a magical place. Now of course we lived there from later 1980 until 1992, and so it was quieter and less popular as a destination. We lived for 5 years in a little rental house within a short walk of the plaza.

        Reply

        • And I strongly second what Bob said above, it is hard to explain to you how significant that event was. A hotshot crew being sent home early from a fire after being busted smoking dope and drinking on the fire line with a supervisor not to mention with the saw teams.

          It was shocking to me and turned my thinking about Marsh 180 degrees. It is hard to overstate how bad that event was in the big scheme of things.

          Reply

          • And even if you look at Colorado and Washington as a Government employee that includes all Government Jobs you can and will be fired for smoking pot off duty even though it is supposedly legal. That also includes many normal Jobs that require Drug tests to work.

            Reply

            • Yes, in fact, it was on the news last night that a quadriplegic who legally smoked dope for his condition in Colorado, where of course pot is legal, on his own time was fired by the Dish Network for failing a random drug test. And the Supreme Court just upheld his termination.

              So ya, if a quadriplegic can’t smoke pot on his own time for his condition in a state where it is legal because he will get fired by the Dish Network where he worked an office job . I vote that any wildland firefighting supervisor who gets busted smoking pot on the fire line with his saw team when he is doing it in a state where it isn’t even legal and he is from a state where it isn’t legal for him either, should be fired and not simply passed on to another crew. How about we use that as our minimum standard?

              That is setting the bar pretty low, even for government work. It sounds like the story here might be the chicken shit management on the Globe Ranger District and the Tonto National Forest who made it possible for Marsh to recycle and if they did the paperwork it is on Prescott and Willis for hiring him with that record.

              Reply

  94. In the course of putting a few more dots together, way downstream, to try to solve a puzzle that has bedeviled me for a long long long long time……..

    ……….which is, in whose truck was Cory Ball riding shotgun when he was dropped off at the Yarnell Fire Department to borrow their ATV to drive up into Glen Ilah on to tie in with Paul/Justin and the dozer to check out the possibility of putting more dozer line in to the southwest – an assignment he was give by Gary Cordes?………………………………..

    I just came to something of a bombshell of a conclusion. It didn’t totally surprise me, but when I saw how easily it fit together, I was a little stunned.

    So here it is, and if anybody can provide a piece of evidence or two that it could not be true, I am TOTALLY WILLING to be proven incorrect.
    ———————————————————–

    Marti Reed says JUNE 14, 2015 AT 11:58 AM

    And, it also could have been Paul Musser in his truck driving over to the RHR to pick up Cory and drop him off at the YFD at 4:27 PM before then heading up Shrine Road at, according to his interview, about 4:30, after he sees Blue Ridge turning onto 89 towards the RHR.

    I’m looking at my Paul Musser revised timeline, which I wrote after I discovered it was not him driving the red truck and most likely driving the State Fire Incident Command truck.

    The last time-point I have for him is 3:55, when he and Gary were talking on 89. According to his interview, I think, he and Gary talked briefly after that and then he decided to head down to Yarnell.

    So he had between 4 and 4:30 to be in Yarnell doing whatever.

    Possibly including arranging and facilitating the hand-off of the ATV to Cory Ball?

    That would have been totally easy-peasy for him to do.
    —————————————————

    Marti Reed says JUNE 14, 2015 AT 12:04 PM

    So I’m putting my money on this one.
    ——————————————————-

    Marti Reed says JUNE 14, 2015 AT 12:11 PM

    And the implications of THAT could be fairly significant.
    —————————————–

    I never thought the Gary Cordes “plan” just lived inside of Gary Cordes’ head alone.

    Now, I’m almost positive it didn’t.

    Reply

    • Seriously, Paul Musser is the ONLY person on that fire at that time, in that area, in that color of a vehicle, with the requisite kind of authority (and I have really wracked my brain over this for a long time) for whom I can even remotely begin to say:

      “That would have been totally easy-peasy for him to do.”

      Reply

      • Agree. See longer response below where I take your idea even one step further.

        Musser was all about discovering what resources he had ‘down there’.

        He may have even swung into the YFD himself after heading south from 89 following the Cordes Hwy 89 meet-up… and seen for himself what was or wasn’t there at the YFD. ( Equipment and men, etc. ).

        Then Musser continues down to RHR.. and gets there at the same moment Ball is arriving.

        It is then ( as you speculate ) Musser himself who has “the solution” to get Ball back onto that “emergency dozer line scouting” he and Cordes wanted him to do.

        Musser himself discovers Blue Ridge isnt’ at the RHR yet, decides to head out to Shrine to see what’s keeping them,… and drop Ball off at YFD in the process so he can grab that ATV, get back out to dozer / Paul… and get back on that “scout dozer line for Glen Ilah” assignment.

        It makes sense ( given what evidence we have ).

        Reply

    • And yarnell_gamble.MOV was captured at the exact same time Cory Ball’s photo of driving into the Yarnell Fire Department was.

      Reply

      • Which was seven minutes after the time most commonly agreed to that Granite Mountain started heading down into that bowl filled to the brim with all that explosive fuel.

        Reply

        • Still with ya on this one, Marti.

          So if it was “Field OPS2” Musser himself who had just dropped Ball off at YFD and Musser knew Ball was now headed back out to Morin / Dozer… then WHILE he was driving away from the YFD and back up to Shrine road would have been a perfectly logical time for him to either make a callout to Marsh himself ( talking about YARNELL-GAMBLE video now ) to establish whereabouts and give a good “Please hurry up” kick-in-the-ass.

          I still don’t think that “other” voice in the YARNELL-GAMBLE that Marsh seems to be reporting back to belonged to Paul Musser… but the fact is we still don’t know WHO that was.

          But remember… even if that “Could you please hurry to town” person talking in that video wasn’t who Marsh was “responding” to ( at exactly 4:27 PM )… there is still absolutely NO QUESTION that Marsh was reporting GM’s situation back to SOMEONE who had just asked him to.

          Marsh was NOT talking to himself at 4:27.

          He was answering SOMEONE’S question about what was taking GM so long to get to town. Someone who wanted to know why they weren’t there yet.

          Reply

          • And yes, I went back and looked into some of the older stuff regarding the Gamble video and saw that you didn’t think Musser was the voice on that question.

            I have always said that, since hearing things is not my forte, I wouldn’t waste my time trying to do that regarding all of this video/radio recording stuff.

            So I’m still not sure and I have been relying on and trusting your expertise.

            Reply

            • Paul Musser had/has a very particular sort of ‘voice placement’. It’s what vocal experts would call a ‘nasal’ placement and a ‘higher pitch’. It gives his voice almost what sounds like sort of a constant ‘whine’.

              I am NOT hearing that ‘whine’ in the voice of whoever it is that is speaking at the start of that YARNELL-GAMBLE video… and telling someone to “hurry to town” but “you’re the supervisor… you’ll figure it out”.

              My BEST GUESS as to who that voice belongs to has always been OPS1 Todd Abel… but it’s not a perfect voice match there, either.

              That transmission was over the heavily monitored TAC channel.

              SOMEONE ( Ronald Gamble himself ? Brendan McDonough? ) heard ( and remembers ) the actual CALL SIGN of that person.

              Regardless of who that is speaking in the YARNELL-GAMBLE video… I still think you could be absolutely right that OPS2 Paul Musser was not only the co-author of this “scout emergency dozer line to try and protect Glen Ilah” idea/plan… Musser could have been the one jumping in to facilitate things by delivering Ball to the YFD to get that ATV.

              It’s perfectly possible.

              Reply

              • Copy. Gotcha.

                And, really, given all that was going on, that question could have been given by way somebody else to way somebody else. Maybe. Although I can’t really think of any other candidates.

                I’m listening back and forth between Gamble and Aaron’s M2U00264. What do you think about it possibly being Gary Cordes?

                Reply

                • Even before we saw those 21 ( count ’em… 21 ) ‘additional’ Aaron Hulburd videos that the US Forestry Service purposely withheld from BOTH the SAIT and ADOSH investigators…

                  The Gary Cordes voice sample I was using to compare to that first speaker in the YARNELL-GAMBLE video was that clear transmission of him in the Panebaker videos telling Paul Musser that Blue Ridge had just told him that dozer line was “lost”.

                  I am NOT hearing a match between Cordes’ voice and that first speaker in the YARNELL-GAMBLE.

                  Again… IMHO the closest match to any voice sample indicates it was OPS1 Todd Abel.

                  Not only does the voice placement match… the speaker ‘hesitates’ and says ‘Uhhh’ in exactly the same way Todd Abel is heard doing in other clear recordings.

                  The most significant match is the way the caller says the word ‘Copy’. THAT part matches Todd Abel exactly.

                  But for that to actually be OPS1 Todd Abel would mean that ALL of his official testimony ( to every investigator he talked to ) is basically an absolute LIE.

                  At the moment this YARNELL-GAMBLE video was recorded from the driver’s seat of that Blue Ridge Crew Carrier… Brendan McDonough was just yards away sitting in the Driver’s Seat of the GM Superintendent truck and “ready to convoy” out with Blue Ridge.

                  At that moment… Brendan had NOTHING to do but just sit there in that truck and take in all the radio traffic.

                  It is HIGHLY LIKELY that Brendan heard this ENTIRE conversation… including the CALL SIGN of whoever it was speaking at the start of that video.

                  Yes… the same likelihood exists for BR Hotshot Ronald Gamble ( that he heard and remembers the CALL SIGNS involved )…

                  …but Ronald Gamble is a Blue Ridge Hotshot and is sitting behind that GAG WALL put up by the US Forestry Service.

                  Brendan is the one who is about to be ‘under oath’.

                  He should be ASKED about this YARNELL-GAMBLE video ( under oath ) and whether he heard any of the CALL SIGNS involved… or the part of that conversation that preceded the recording we can hear ourselves.

                  I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again.

                  I hope the attorneys realize that as important as it is to ask Brendan ( while he is UNDER-OATH ) about anything he heard on the GM intra-crew… it is EQUALLY as important to ask him about ANY radio traffic he heard… including the TAC channel(s).

                  Brendan wasn’t just hearing the GM intra-crew traffic following his departure from the lookout mound and on up through the deployment.

                  Brendan was hearing ALL RADIO TRAFFIC that both his handheld and the truck radio happened to lock onto.

                  Reply

                  • PS: If anyone still takes offense at being mis-identified as the *possible* first speaker in that YARNELL-GAMBLE video… the solution there has always been simple.

                    Just tell us who it REALLY was.

                    Reply

                  • So now I’m going back to thinking about it being Todd Abel. I think you make a pretty convincing case.

                    I’m not sure what you mean by, it that was him, it makes everything he said a lie.

                    To me it seems possible he could have said that to someone other than Eric. There were crews coming, including one arriving to the north — as we hear convo about that in Aaron’s video(s).

                    He could have said that to that crew or another. All things considered.

                    That doesn’t negate the importance of the obvious fact that Eric was responding to SOMEBODY about SOMETHING.

                    And the fact that Blue Ridge probably would have heard who that was.

                    And, now I’m thinking, all things considered, given the timing, Paul Musser would definitely have heard that, and possibly Cory Ball too.

                    And that means, given the timing and what was going on, it makes total sense for Musser to have initiated that status report conversation.

                    Which COULD (unless my sense of the timing of it all is inaccurate) have even taken place while Ball and possibly Musser were actually sitting in that white truck looking right at the fire from the Yarnell Fire Department parking lot.

                    What do you think about that?

                    Reply

                    • And, what I’m meaning is Musser initiating the status report that we hear Eric responding to, not the one that we actually hear, which could have been related to something different.

      • When I was googling. last night there was a webpage on yarnell that said this site is a gossip site. ???? I never viewed this site like that. how come. someone can say such? All the hardwork and discussions and trying to figure it out. how come because to me gossip is negativity to hurt or harm and yet we all are just trying to figure this out. July 1 is my bday and marti anniversary date to cease but we all know where we can find you right? or do you want to be left alone after July 1?

        Reply

        • Joy— you must have been reading the–yarnellhillfireblog
          It has more to do with gossip than we do here along with not many followers and attacks on me as well as others you will also see only people trying to set there record straight being attacked back to prove their point. It was set up by someone that use to be on here. Need I say more.

          Reply

            • Confirmed.

              I was sun drained last night so did not read site until now.

              what is it …smoking gun???
              This fire has not been properly assessed is all…the rest are just human beings with on and off line dialogues ..opinion …theory …ddiscussions…
              how do we learn if we do not open up and share
              who decided who is free to share and who is not
              we all with full names or not share even when we now acknowledge sharks sit awaiting every vowel and constant. to judgr when we should be free to perceive the fire in how it affected us all.

              the point being shared by Brendan will not reveal any smoking gun???? Why the negativity …whatever Brendan shares should open the door to have mandatory central yavapai, sun city, blue ridge and etcc to be interviewed if it involved anyone else present when he shares what he shares

              sorry if any typos
              cell being weird

              how come the administration answered Keneth Jordan but not Julir Pitts Time line question

              who writes “breaking news” with no name. tied to it yet says and where I saw I’M GOSSIP BLOG.

              the site says Bob Powers..a rumor monger????
              Why not name me.one because he got same information same week I dif last Fall.

              when we get information we do our best to post it even if its with source who does not want to be public
              Even if Dr Ted Putnam said we probably would of had more people approach hikers if qe were not so open mouthed…so how is it open and being candid makes it rumor or gossip versus just an added details thqt need further fact document when ablr…does not mean it did not happen or is gossip. just missing some public details

              someone on thatsite says bob attacks people who disagrees with him.
              i have never been attacked by bob and we have not always agreed and bob goes the extra mile and patiently educated me with how he came to his view.

              poor Kenneth Jordan..has Gabbert been there? The assessments on gps…I agree Gabbert because YCSO did find me via gps tracking before so why did they not that final hours where sair sqid there was a gap…i asked two deputies and both concluded chaotic afternoon and a bad thing happened

              yes it does sound harsh to make a blog about the time MacLean and Holly article surfaced
              And write the perceptions I read…

              now when it comes to this one
              I have enjoyed since October 2013 to present learning about the person yet for me just cannot comprehend so i know it has to be in person only person to my life so no miscalculations via cyber space

              Reply

              • IwwantedttoaasjMMikeDDudleyssomsomethingaandIgotaautautomaticrreply:
                I am currently out of the office on annual leave without access to cell phone or email. I will reutrn on Monday June 15. During my absense John Shannon is acting director of State and Private Forestry and can be reached at 406-329-3472 or [email protected].

                Reply

              • Seriously.

                Don’t take any of this seriously, Joy.

                Except for the fact that this is Elizabeth N.

                Which I do, partially, and don’t, partially, take seriously.

                Because most of us have, at some time, taken her seriously. For some serious reasons.

                Again, this is all like the fire.

                If it weren’t so serious, it would all be hilarious.

                See what I wrote below.

                Reply

                • What do we do when we discover that Shakespeare is writing this fire, and its aftermath, including us, with his pen?

                  I seriously don’t know.

                  I’m just a simple photographer. Who needs to get back to her work.

                  Reply

        • Hee hee. To both of you, Joy and Bob.

          I had almost written a really short response and then I thought, naw i’m gonna go get a green chile cheeseburger and some cat food and then sit down and write the longer funnier thing I had thought about writing.

          It was along the lines of:

          That’s apparently just some law professor who likes to think he/she is gathering his/her followers around him/her self there (real and imagined)…….

          ………. and read “their” (not that I think there’s any there there, from what I can see) lavish praise of his/her self and his/her self’s totally awesome and accurate secret sources……..

          ……….and pat him/her self on the back for his/her awesome expertise (mostly imagined) regarding fire weather…….

          ………and bash people like Bob Powers (that ancient old codger who, obviously knows NOTHiNG about REAL fire-fighting) and Fred Schoefler (using, of all people, Ken Jordan who responded in total disgust to it all)………

          …………while periodically wandering over here (this VILE place filled with nothing but rumors and gossip) periodically, to relentlessly attack EVERYBODY here (well, everybody except you, Sonny, and me, for some reason) for so OBVIOUSLY being NOTHING but CLONES of RTS/Fred Shoefler

          Nice place, huh?

          I kept my description gender-neutral because nowhere on that site does the owner/writer of that site identify his/her self that he/she so relentlessly praises.

          After lobbing a hardball to the Gods of Fire today, I just had to write something funny. Thanks, Joy, for giving me a reason to.

          Reply

          • Oh, yes, and to prove his/her cozy relationship with wildland fire-fighters, especially Hotshots…………

            ………he/she almost ALWAY uses the term “the guys,” as if that, in itself, guarantees his/her self’s acceptance into “The Brotherhood,” and, thus, the Public’s (especially us, hint hint) total automatic acceptance of his/her divinely-inspired knowledge about all things fire-fighting, especially when it pertains to the Yarnell Hill Wildfire…….

            ……………which he/she really really really considers his/her self’s total and unquestionable knowledge and wisdom about to be of the utmost significance and, thus, reliability.

            Hey, look at me!!!! I haz Writers Skillzzzzz!!!

            Reply

            • And, unfortunately, I confess to having given him/her page-hits in order to do that necessary research.

              Somebody had to do it.

              Reply

              • And now, after the past 24 hours,

                I. Just. Feel. Like. Crying.

                This is where we’re at.

                If it all weren’t so incredibly tragic and awful and maddening, it would be totally hysterically funny.

                Which is why I still think Shakespeare is still writing this fire.

                And PS JD would you pleeze pleeze pleeze fix this problem where all my posts get automatically tagged with http://deleted, thus atomically painting my name red unless I see and delete that?

                I’ve never had this happen before and it’s a huge PITA for me.

                I think, all things considered, I deserve at least that small pittance.

                Reply

                • Marti… I think you might have control over that yourself.

                  Every time you post a message here… there are THREE fields that appear at the top of the input box…

                  Name
                  Email
                  Website

                  Somehow… somewhere along the line… I think you may have typed some characters into the ‘Website’ field.

                  What WordPress will try to do then is make your NAME ( as it appears at the top of your posts ) a ‘clickable link’ to whatever website you might want people to jump to by clicking on your name.

                  Play around with this yourself as you post more messages and see if you can ‘fix it’.

                  If you type in a VALID website… it might turn your name back to BLACK in the postings.

                  OR… it might keep your name RED ( indicating its clickable )… but at least then clicking on it will WORK.

                  I don’t even know exactly how to get into the WordPress database that is associating Names with websites and ERASE a bogus entry that might be ‘stuck’ in there.

                  But YOU may still have CONTROL over what’s actually going on with that… and whether clicking your name actually WORKS, or not.

                  Reply

                  • I NEVER typed any characters into the website field.

                    And, apparently, Gary is now, as he is ranting, being afflicted by this weird thing also. Which I have to say is making me feel better.

                    But thank you anyway.

                    Come on JD, can you pleeeeeze fix this?

                    Reply

                  • All I can do is keep deleting this thing which, apparently randomly. keeps attaching itself to my posts.

                    Reply

                    • Or Perhaps a New York Lawyer is Hacking this Blog Site and certain people???????

                    • Bob~

                      Well THAT’s a thought.

                      Who knows????????

                      Apparently it seems to only be attacking me and Gary.

                      And NEITHER of us has been ever accused of being a cline of RTS/Fred.

                      Interesting.

                      Maybe this blog is being attacked by somebody higher up than Elizabeth Nowicki?

                    • So how come it’s, apparently, not attacking WTKTT?

                      He’s said WAY worse things about the upper ups than I have!

                      At least sorta kinda. If not totally.

                      He was GENEROUSLY attacked on this site for thinking the “hurry up” guy in Gamble was Todd Abel, which I didn’t even really believe. But I had no clue because I have no ear for this stuff. So I didn’t weigh in. Then.

                    • Whomever, whatever,

                      JD really needs to figure out what’s doing this, as of about a month ago, and fix it.

                    • I do not follow? What does it mean to hack on a blog?
                      What can the person do? Zazzle told me on an inquiry the reason my hiking page at http://www.zazzle.com/congress_arizona* was not a zazzle glitch more so a hack and I had no clue what it meant because how can someone enter my page without my passwords? and why? Was there a GMHS/YHF photo someone did not want public? I know Google alerts me and it has when someone tries to enter my GMAIL because I set the highest security…I use to years ago paid for a service for my hiking page …a professional stat counter because I could not understand HOW that simple page not advertised made me a PROseller which is a symbol on the top left of my page….silver…and they just sent me a special six year anniversary invitation for ???…and my page was just a byproduct of my hikes…I think I joined 5/30/2009. That page was made to quickly stop on and update locals/friends/family so they know I am okay out there in the desert alone and it seems if I don’t babysit the comments & such; they just vanish…and all I get is “sorry for the zazzle glitch “aka”..hacking???”…I also am interested in anyone 90 years old or older in my towns…they are my soul’s generation and connection…I am interested in hiking Arizona only. I am interested in wildlife in its natural state not staged…However I have not updated that site since hanging out on the trails with Sonny…pioneering right now this here Arizona.
                      So I am interested in the topic HACKING because I always felt my professional tracking system was in a sort a hack. I could place any ip address that I was owner of and it would track name, ip, location and I always wondered if this is a technique that somehow someone used to state many ids on here are the same but I thought you had to own the page to do it so maybe not? I did like the tracker because my mother said she went to site and yet the tracker did not lie and it showed if she did or not. I knew what locals gave a shit if I was alive or not by their hits and views so very possible because some said “went to your site..great stuff…” and I knew they had not…kind of weeded out the liars and crap…but I am not into the savvy pc tracking crap anymore…my brother is able to do stuff like remotely get in my pc to help me on a cs5 photoshop question since he is a commercial steel architect…he is the brains for pcs…

    • I’m with ya on this one, Marti.

      Brilliant observation… and I’m going to ‘imagineer’ your thought even farther.

      ( Yes… sometimes “imagineering” is what gets the cows in the barn when all you have are fragments of evidence like this and not the complete picture ).

      When Paul Musser decided to abandon his “Planning OPS” role and jumped into the fire as the SECOND active “Field OPS”… the first thing he did was throw together some resources that were hanging around the ICP and he jumped into the fire up there on the north end and was organizing / supervising that structure protection work up there in the Sickles Road area.

      That actually went well. They saved some structures up there, as far was we know.

      Now we have “Field OPS2” Musser heading down to Yarnell where the shit is about to hit the fan.

      On his WAY DOWN… he communicates with SPGS1 Gary Cordes and Cordes tells him he just heard from BR Supt Frisby that the dozer line they’d been working was “lost”.

      So by the time Musser bumps into Cordes there along the side of Highway 89, just somewhere slightly north of where Shrine Road meets Highway 89, Musser had already made his infamous 4:42 PM “availability” check with Granite Mountain.

      Someone ( by all evidence DIVSA Eric Marsh himself ) had told Musser during that 4:42 PM “availability check” that Granite Mountain was still “committed to the ridge”… and that if Musser needed Hotshots to try Blue Ridge who were already “down there” close to town.

      Now Musser meets with Cordes on the side of Highway 89.

      The two men assess the situation.

      All trigger points have been blown. The fire is coming into Yarnell.

      Conversation turns to what, if anything, could possibly still be done with the resources available there on the south end of the fire.

      Cordes and Musser decide its worth seeing if some kind of EMERGENCY DOZER PUSH could happen somewhere “out there” to at least keep the fire from pushing straight into the Glen Ilah subdivision.

      Cordes immediately locates the dozer and discovers its either just now driving down to where its LOBOY is staged at the south end of Sesame Clearing… or it is ALREADY” there.

      Cordes tells acting HEQB/DOZB Cory Ball to KEEP the dozer there for the moment in case it can be used for this emergency dozer push… and he tells Cory Ball ( and one other? ) to “scout this out… ASAP”.

      But at this moment… ASAP is “relative” for Cory Ball because his OWN “A-Number-One” had told him in no uncertain terms to get that Blue Ridge Chase Truck with the Polaris Ranger trailer attached back to the RHR staging area…where Blue Ridge was actively heading.

      So instead of dozer operator Paul Morin just driving the dozer straight up onto the LOBOY ( as he would have done if he was leaving )… Morin holds the dozer ‘ground ready’ there at the south end of the Sesame Clearing.

      Cory Ball tells Morin… “You wait right here… I’ll be RIGHT BACK and we’ll scout this out and see if there’s any way to push some line around here”.

      On the way out… Cory Ball stops for just a moment right there at where Fountainhill Road intersects with Lakewood Drive. As Joy’s recent photos show… that’s one of the first places on that Lakewood Drive exit where Ball would have had a good CLEAR view of the advancing fire and smoke plumes off there to the Northwest.

      So Ball stops there just for a moment to ‘assess’ the developing reality with his own eyes… and that’s when photograph 097.jpg was taken and captures the top of his Blue Helmet in the photograph looking up at the approaching smoke column along with those other people there who were actively evacuating.

      Cory Ball jumps back in the BR Chase truck and drives the rest of the short distance on Lakewood to the Ranch House Restuarant.

      ( Now back to your post )

      DURING this time… Paul Musser had LEFT that roadside meetup with Gary Cordes and he was still in “What resources do I have to work with down here?” mode.

      Musser heads SOUTH on 89 from that roadside meetup with Cordes to eventually try and find this “Ranch House Restaurant” staging area where Cordes told him other resources were assembling.

      Musser now might have even STOPPED BY the Yarnell Hill Fire Station on his way DOWN to the RHR just to see who might be ‘staged’ there.

      Musser might have actually, at this moment, become aware of what was at the YFD and what wasn’t… including an unused ATV and other equipment.

      Musser CONTINUES down to the RHR.

      So now we have “Field OPS2” Musser and Cory Ball perhaps ARRIVING at the RHR parking lot at almost about the same time.

      Cory Ball is now confused.

      He THOUGHT he was going to be meeting his crewmates there… including Frisby and Brown with the Polaris Ranger.

      They weren’t there. The BR Hotshots were still just “loading up’ out in the Youth Camp area and Frisby and Brown have now gotten totally caught up with “pushing” all those other FFs out of the Youth Camp area.

      So there is Cory Ball standing in the RHR parking lot… WITH Musser… and he is now lacking a way to get right back out to Paul Morin and the dozer and get on this “scout emergency dozer line for Glen Ilah” assignment that Cordes/Musser had already given him.

      So it is then OPS2 Paul Musser himself who realizes Ball’s predicament and offers to drive him up the road to the Yarnell Fire Station to get that unused ATV.

      So Musser does that… and THAT would explain the “white hood” seen on that vehicle that was “delivering” Ball to the YFD station to get that ATV.

      Ball takes off SOUTH from the YFD in the ATV.
      Musser continues back NORTH towards Shrine Road… and that is when he “took a left” off Highway 89 ( because he was coming from the south now ) and Musser headed west on Shrine Road and down to the St. Joseph Shrine parking lot.

      That is when we now see him ARRIVING at that parking lot and having that “Everything is going to shit” verbal exchange with PNF off-the-radar hire KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell… as captured in that Aaron Hulburd Helmet Cam video.

      That “Hello Paul!” from KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell and Musser’s response to him of “Everything’s going to shit” was the actual moment Musser was ARRIVING there at the St. Joseph Shrine parking lot.

      But now we know that at the same moment Musser is having this “Everthing is going to shit” exchange with KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell… Cory Ball ( on the ATV ) was discovering he was NOT going to be able to get back to Paul Morin and the dozer out there at that clearing where Lakewood and Manzanita pavement ends.

      The fire had come in too hard, too fast, while he was doing all that “borrowing the ATV” stuff… and Cory Ball was never going to either “scout emergency dozer line” or even get back to Paul Morin and tell him to get the hell out of there.

      Paul Morin dutifully was sitting out there waiting for Ball to return ( without a radio ) and by the time Morin himself realized no one was “coming back”… it was too late for him.

      He then had to either ride out the incoming fireline in the cab of the dozer OR ( perhaps ) the cab of the LOBOY… whichever offered the better protection.

      AND ( and this is the big AND )… it is still perfectly possible that Granite Mountain got all “caught up” in this EMERGENCY PLAN.

      It would still explain why… at some point AFTER 4:42 PM when Eric Marsh himself had told “Field OPS2” Paul Musser they were “committed to the ridge”… Marsh is suddenly hauling ass south and trying to get the Boulder Springs Ranch himself… and then would eventually be telling/ordering Steed/Crew to get their asses up out of that black and down there to that Ranch.

      It also explains the YARNELL-GAMBLE video/audio and that apparent attempt on someone’s part to get Marsh and GM to HURRY TO TOWN.

      Gary Cordes said NOTHING about this whole “scout emergency dozer” line to
      ANY of the investigators he talked to.

      Ditto for Paul Musser. He describes what he SAYS was his “one and only communication” with Marsh that day as just an “availability check… but they were committed to the ridge”.

      Musser also NEVER mentions anything about this “emergency dozer line” plan.

      But acting HEQB/DOZB Cory Ball DOES.

      And Cory Ball says ( specifically ) it was an assignment coming directly from Cordes.

      You almost have to wonder whether someone ( Mike Dudley himself? ) screwed up the REDACTIONS in Cory Ball’s Unit Log… and just MISSED this clear reference on Ball’s part to this last-ditch-effort dozer line plan.

      If Cordes and Musser were going to NEVER mention it to ADOSH because the potential ‘liability’ issues there were scaring the shit out of them… then Dudley probably should have redacted all of Cory Ball’s references to it as well in his Unit Log.

      Somehow… someway… this important UNTOLD story of what was happening there in those 45 minutes leading up to the deployment NEEDS to be told.

      Ball, Cordes and Musser need to be asked a lot more (specific) questions.

      And if anyone bumps into Yavapai County Public Works employee Paul Morin.. tell him we are looking for him and have some questions HE needs to answer.

      Reply

      • IF TAT WAS A PLAN IT WAS ILL CONCIEVED

        All of this last minuet SHIT is why people died and nearly died. They should have been pulling back to safety Zones or in the case of GM stayed in the Black.
        This was not the time to be changing plans and putting people in grater danger.
        Back off regroup and reevaluate. Pulling resources to throw at the fire when it is in full blowup is asinine, dangerous and says little about the leadership.

        Your assumptions could be correct but they are not in the Safe interests of the fire fighters as you have said– this is a classic example of Death From Above.
        Good intentions that lack common sense.

        In Brush you can not attack the head of a fire that is blowing up with 12 plus MPH winds. Dozers, Engines and hand crews are useless. and you are backed up against the urban interface with out defensible space. Dozers are no different than hand crews or Engines they can get trapped and people can die.

        And again I say this entire Type 2 Team came close to killing more than the Granit Mountain HS.

        Reply

        • LOL!

          What, exactly, on this fire was NOT ill-conceived???

          But yeah, you’re exactly right, and it’s a major miracle more than 19 people didn’t die on this fire.

          But we’re just trying to piece this together, not justify it, believe me.

          And what I just stuck my neck way way way out there to describe does something we haven’t done before.

          Discover and describe Paul Musser’s connection to this plan.

          Which was I was really nervous about putting it out there.

          And I also attached it to the Yarnell Gamble video. For a reason.

          I guess if I’m going to stick my neck out, the implications of my assertions should be very very clear.

          Paul Musser KNEW what this plan was and knew what and who was being “assigned” regarding it. He probably was the co-planner. He KNEW all this stuff. He was involved in IMPLEMENTING it.

          He and Cory Ball were right there at the Yarnell Fire Department, looking right at that mountain on fire, just a little after GM headed down into that bowl, and someone said to someone, “It sure would be nice if you could get to town quicker, but you’re the supervisor, so………………”

          And then Eric Marsh said, patiently and clearly, “They’re coming off the heel of the fire.”

          I don’t know. What are the odds??????

          Cordes and Musser et al have kept this thing in a very tightly sealed envelope for almost two years. Because this kind of isht has serious consequences. Both really and consequentially.

          We have been patiently, thanks mostly to Cory Ball, holding this envelope inch by inch over enough steam to quite painstakingly unstick it and get it open enough to even begin to see what’s inside it.

          And it ain’t pretty.

          Reply

          • I am not disagreeing with you just noting the fact that it was a last minuet shit plan with no real knowledge or research to carry it out.

            Reply

            • Exactly.

              I knew you understood that.

              But I really had to clarify that, all things considered.

              I would REALLY like someone to prove I’m wrong.

              Especially after having repeatedly saying Kyle Dickman could easily face a lawsuit over writing what he wrote about Brian Frisby.

              If I’m wrong in writing what I have written today about Paul Musser, the sooner I know that, the better.

              Especially because, as you said this was:

              “a last minuet shit plan with no real knowledge or research to carry it out.”

              And a plan which may (or may not) have had a serious influence on the (already stressed-out and smoke-carbon-monoxide-influenced decision-making of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, as well as putting the life of Dozer Operator Paul/Justin Morin extremely at risk.

              And, hey, if, in fact, what TTWARE wrote way way way downstream about how, to prove the point that Brian Frisby most likely didn’t issue that order to the Peeples Valley fire-fighters to, essentially abandon their crew, because they didn’t have time……., because if a crew had been found AT RISK like that, it would have been……………

              ALL THINGS STOP until we find them and help them…………………..

              Where was the “stoppage” when “someone” discovered that that dozer operator was “missing”?

              Oh, yeah, that’s right, he was included in the “Search and Rescue” order, so that makes it all OK.

              Got it.

              Move along, everybody, nothing to look at.

              Reply

              • Marti… look at it this way.

                The person under discussion was now ‘inserting’ himself into the fire command as the SECOND ‘Active’ Field OPS… and he had obviously come charging into Yarnell with a huge “I’m in charge here now” attitude and started asking all about what resources he had available to him, and what they were ‘commiteed’ to ( or not ).

                Given that fact.. if ‘this person’ ( OPS2 Paul Musser ) had NOT been aware that SPGS1 Cary Cordes was directing acting HEQB/DOZB Cory Ball to “scout dozer line to protect Glen Ilah”…

                …then he wouldn’t have been much of a “Field OPS”… would he?

                It has ALWAYS been possible ( if not HIGHLY likely ) that OPS2 Paul Musser was not only AWARE that Cory Ball had been instructed to “scout emergency dozer line to protect Glen Ilah’… but that he ( Musser ) was also the co-author of this idea/plan.

                It has also ALWAYS been a mystery what OPS2 Paul Musser was actually doing between the time he had that side-of-the-road meeting with Cordes and we then suddenly see him appearing out at the Shrine of St. Joseph parking lot and having that “Everything’s going to shit” greeting/exchange with PNF off-the-radar hire KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell.

                We really are talking about almost a HALF-HOUR here where OPS2 Paul Musser’s whereabouts and activities in a VERY critical timeframe are almost totally unknown.

                And Paul Musser was no help making this any clearer in his OWN ADSOH interviews.

                If you read his own testimony… it is almost as is Musser himself was trying to NOT report on his actual whereabouts for the half-hour between when he met wiith Cordes on the side of Highway 89 and he suddenly appears in the St. Joseph Shrine parking lot.

                To hear him tell it… there WAS no ‘time in-between’.

                He ( Musser ) gives the impression that as soon as he got done meeting with Cordes on Hwy 89… he went down Shrine Road. ( In the same 3:45 timeframe ).

                That is NOT TRUE.

                It would be pretty much a little MORE than a half-hour later before we finally hear KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell say “Hello Paul!” to him as he ARRIVED there in the St. Joseph Shrine parking lot.

                So I don’t consider what you posted today any kind of “softball to the Fire Gods”.

                It’s simply a re-visitation of a long-standing mystery.

                It was Joy’s most recent citizen photograph with that Blue Ridge Hotshot helmet in it that has actually caused us to take another look-see here as this “scout dozer line” mystery.

                And that’s a GOOD thing.

                SOMEONE informed Cory Ball there was an unused ATV sitting in the Yarnell Fire Station garage.

                SOMEONE offered to take him over there to borrow it.

                SOMEONE did that very thing… and then went somewhere else as Ball headed away from the YFD station on the ATV.

                That SOMEONE could have easily been OPS2 Paul Musser, who then continued north on 89, took a left on Shrine Road, and then drove down to the St. Joseph Shrine parking lot where we then see/hear KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell saying…

                “Hello, Paul!”

                and Paul Musser resonded with…

                “Everything’s going to shit”.

                Reply

                • Copy.

                  And I totally agree.

                  Except with the “softball.”

                  I wrote “hardball.” Which I feel is what I’m doing. Which I have done before (especially regarding Darrell Willis), but still it’s kind of un-nerving every time I do it.

                  And I know you have done this also. And neither of us have experienced any serious negative consequences for doing it. Knock on wood.

                  Even though it is, yes, simply, as you wrote, “a re-visitation of a long-standing mystery.”

                  I guess it depends on who is reading this as to whether this is “softball” or “hardball.”

                  So a blend between would still mean WE are saying Paul Musser was the co-planner and co-facilitator of, as Bob Powers rightly characterized it “a last minuet shit plan with no real knowledge or research to carry it out” that may or may not have been involved in Granite Mountain’s descent into that explosive bowl, and a dozer operator’s likely serious “near miss” that was never acknowledged much less investigated,

                  And the SAIT knew about this plan and its consequences, I am sure, via their interview with the Blue Ridge Hotshots Four, which they immediately subsequently gagged, and also, then kicked the ADOSH off of their investigation.

                  And, thence, neither anything more in either their or the ADOSH investigations went anywhere into this whole ‘PLAN.”

                  Conveniently.

                  Reply

                    • Oh yes, seriously.

                      Except I’m not sure it could further deeper than I think.

                      I’m thinking that I’m thinking this goes way further than “they” want me/us to thing.

                      I think I’m thinking pretty deeply.

            • I totally agree with Bob – bad plan and too late. However, I have said in earlier chapters that although not “text book “conditions, they wanted to get that emergency dozer line in and have a “shot crew” to fire it ( the Hail Mary pass). Or at least get some additional black to add to the width of the dozer line. What else would they need them for and what did they have to loose? They were going to get their asses kicked, for numerous reasons starting back on the failed initial attack ( wont go there again because it still pisses me off) Shot crews are known for their ability to put fire on the ground under extreme conditions. Again, I am not saying this would have been a “text book” operation but I think they may have been thinking they (Ops, take your pick of which one) had no other options. I have believed for a long time that is what the GMIHC were moving to do – still don’t believe that is a viable reason to do what they did but I believe that is why they left the safe black.

              So, at who’s request? That I don’t know, I do have my suspicions (Willis?). But the bottom line remains – the crew sup is responsible for the safety of his crew. Although Gary has identified some things that may of contributed to the human side of all of this.

              Reply

        • That seems to be the consensus of all the experienced wild land firefighters we have talked to Bob. Once that fire went ballistic then all safety rules are in double effect–find a safe zone.

          If you and Gary Olsen ever decide to take the hike–legally I say–not to the fence but such that you can see the situation, I would be glad to do that. Where Joy got into trouble was mentioning the “Fence”. Marsh thought she was talking about the fence when she was talking about the play called the Fence and also the “Fence” in Prescott where all the artifacts are stored. So there are actually three fences. The play Joy has a rehearsal copy of and Ered, the producer did visit us at our desert camp below Yarnell. He was delighted at his visit and learned of Joy’s story and enjoyed some of my good hospitality. He made much of the Play about our encounter with the hot shots and some of our own history include. He said we were survivors and this was about surviving and going on–a theme of seeing the positive evolving from the negative.

          In my own estimation of this–the more that view the situation the better. You might know that Ted has taken the tour more than once and perhaps he would like to do it again–one very nice and informative person to be with–albeit you do have to ask to get answers with him. He is another straight shooter and those are who need to be on top of this tragedy.

          We may head to Yarnell today–I need my mail–Hopefully we can get some more of Kathy’s photos to share with you all–Thanks again to JD for the finest site available concerning the ongoing investigation of what really happened at the Yarnell Fire and the deaths of 19 young wild land fire fighters.

          Reply

          • we made it to Yarnell and everyone has their hats and t-shirts for the second anniversary memorial. I asked how come everyone is geared up like a tourist town and they said it is June 2015 to honor the fallen 19 and those who lost their homes,

            Kathy Hunter Glover got a new laptop because for no reason her other one just began to act up so she is heading home that has all the photos so I can TRY and get number 96 and number 98 and look for anymore Blue Ridge photos. She took that photo at Chase’s house.

            keep you posted.

            Reply

            • Reply to Joy A. Collura post on June 15, 2015 at 5:08 pm

              >> Joy A. Collura said…
              >>
              >> Kathy Hunter Glover got a new laptop because for
              >> no reason her other one just began to act up so she
              >> is heading home that has all the photos so I can TRY
              >> and get number 96 and number 98 and look for
              >> anymore Blue Ridge photos. She took that photo
              >> at Chase’s house.
              >>
              >> keep you posted.

              Thank you, Joy.

              You are way ahead of me. That is exactly what I was going to ‘ping’ you about and ask you to look into.

              Now that photo 097.jpg proves that Blue Ridge Hotshot ( assumed to be Cory Ball ) was standing right there at Fountainhill and Lakewood at that exact time… what would be REALLY good to also know is WHY he had stopped there… and in WHAT vehicle he was traveling at the time.

              Other evidence suggests this must have been when Blue Ridge Hotshot and acting HEQB/DOZB ( dozer boss ) Cory Ball was moving the Blue Ridge Chase Truck with trailer attached from where it had been staged at the bottom of the Sesame clearing area ( where Lakewood and Manazanita pavement ends ) over to the Ranch House Restaurant where it would then be photographed by Mr. Tom Story.

              It would be nice if there could be some additional photographic confirmation of that.

              Even if any other photos of Kathy’s don’t actually show any firefighters… they MIGHT show a VEHICLE.

              Also.. while Kathy’s photo 097.jpg only the shows the very TOP of that Blue Ridge Hotshot’s helmet… it ALSO shows the top of someone else’s head standing right night to him and ( apparently ) having a discussion with him.

              I wonder if Kathy, or anyone else who was there including that ‘other head’ seen talking to the Hotshot recalls that conversation any anything that might have been SAID at that time.

              It matters… especially if anyone recalls this Blue Ridge Hotshot mentioning what HE was planning on doing at that time, or right AFTER he finished moving that vehicle.

              Reply

      • Just off the top of my head before I have to run a quick errand.

        I’m following you. And I MOSTLY agree.

        The one stumbling place I had was with Cory essentially promising Morin he would be right back without having any real idea what he was going to use to get right back.

        You may be right, but I just don’t think he would have said that if he wasn’t pretty majorly sure, all things considered, he could quickly and assuredly grab a vehicle and pull that off. And I don’t see how he could have been sure of that at all.

        I’m currently more of the opinion that both Cordes and Musser were aware that there was that ATV at the YFD. And if they weren’t sure if it was available, they could have easily called to make sure.

        I think when Cordes gave Cory that assignment, it already included getting him the ATV. So I think by the time Cory left the dozer, they all had a pretty good idea of the plan. And either Cordes or Musser had called the YFD to make sure it would work.

        And all Musser had to do was go get Cory and take him to the YFD.

        More later.

        And thanks. Very much. I was really needing a reality check. I get a bit neurotic when I post something like this.

        Reply

        • Reply to Marti Reed post on June 14, 2015 at 3:13 pm

          >> Marti said…
          >>
          >> The one stumbling place I had was with Cory essentially
          >> promising Morin he would be right back without having
          >> any real idea what he was going to use to get right back.
          >>
          >> You may be right, but I just don’t think he would have said
          >> that if he wasn’t pretty majorly sure, all things considered,
          >> he could quickly and assuredly grab a vehicle and pull that
          >> off. And I don’t see how he could have been sure of that at all.

          I have just realized I have never really been fully explaining what I ( me, personally ) believe *might* have been going down there.

          I have always just had this gut feeling that we are looking at a serious case of “Promise interruptus” with regards to this timeframe wherein Frisby and Brown decided to “pull the plug” and evacuate.

          In other words.. some radio conversations took place… and some people ( like Frisby and Brown ) told others ( like Ball ) what their INTENTIONS were… but then other things happened to DELAY those plans and then people ended up not being where other people expected them to be… and WHEN.

          I believe it’s possible that Cory Ball fully expected ALL of Blue Ridge to pretty much already be over there at the Ranch House Restaurant by the time he was going to get there with the BR Chase + Polaris Trailer.

          I believe Frisby ( or Brown ) had told Ball to move that Chase over to the RHR at the same time they were telling the BR Crew to RTO off the Cutover Trail and hightail it out of there and over to the RHR.

          But then things got complicated for Frisby and Brown in the UTV.

          All of sudden… there were lots of other FFs in the Youth Camp area who ( even according to Frisby’s and Brown’s Unit Logs ) weren’t “getting it” and/or weren’t taking the “get out now” directives seriously.

          So instead of “just leaving” on the planned timetable… Frisby and Brown now assumed the role of “herders” and then started shooting all over the Youth Camp area in the Ranger just making SURE that everyone was getting the hell out of there RIGHT NOW.

          Couple that “unplanned” activity with it taking longer to RTO and arrange thta 4 vehicle convoy out of there than they thought it would take…

          …and now you have Cory Ball arriving at the RHR and being confused that his crewmates weren’t there yet… and that Frisby and Brown hadn’t arrived there yet in the UTV so Ball could borrow it and get right back out to Paul / dozer.

          It’s just a gut feeling… but I really believe Cory Ball could have either been promised ( or he, himself, was just assuming ) that the moment he got that BR Chase + Trailer to the RHR… that he could basically just jump right into the Polaris Ranger and shoot right back out to Paul Morin / dozer.

          But when he got to the RHR… he came face to face with “Promise interruptus” and there was no sign of the Polaris Ranger or the BR Crew yet.

          I really don’t believe either Frisby or Brown had any idea, when they told their own Crew to RTO and evacuate, that they were going to get so distracted in the Youth Camp area and have to play “motivator” for all the other FFs in that area.

          I believe Frisby and Brown thought it was just gonna be… RTO…. hop in the trucks… drive straight out. 5 minutes max.

          Those 5 ( planned ) minutes turned into more like 15 or 20 ( unplanned ) minutes… and that caused problems for Cory Ball that had to be solved with “borrowing” ATVs from YFD and whatnot.

          I don’t think anyone intended to “borrow” anything from YFD.
          That just somehow turned into an option after all the “Promise interruptus”.

          >> Marti also said…
          >>
          >> I’m currently more of the opinion that both Cordes and Musser
          >> were aware that there was that ATV at the YFD. And if they
          >> weren’t sure if it was available, they could have easily called
          >> to make sure.
          >>
          >> I think when Cordes gave Cory that assignment, it already
          >> included getting him the ATV. So I think by the time Cory left
          >> the dozer, they all had a pretty good idea of the plan. And
          >> either Cordes or Musser had called the YFD to make sure
          >> it would work.
          >>
          >> And all Musser had to do was go get Cory and take him to the YFD.

          Every bit of “gut’ feeling on my part I’ve described up above could be totally wrong… and it really could have been more like how you describe it.

          All we really KNOW ( for sure ) is there he was ( Ball )… being driven to the YFD in a white hooded vehicle… in order to borrow that YFD ATV… and that THAT is the vehicle he was using to TRY and return to the west end of Glen Ilah… for some reason.

          We have always been trying to just “make that make sense” without enough real testimony or evidence to know the FULL story.

          I’m not trying to complicate things here… but there is another scenario that hasn’t been considered.

          On his way TO the RHR in the BR Chase + Trailer… Cory Ball really did still believe there was going to be TIME to even do this “scout dozer line” assignment Cordes had given him.

          Somewhere right after arriving at the RHR ( and now… perhaps… immediately running into Musser there )… it became pretty obvious looking at the speed of the incoming column(s) that that “emergency dozer line” plan was folly.

          But now there’s a problem.

          Cory Ball now has to tell OPS2 Paul Musser that the dozer and its operator back out there at the west end of Glen Ilah who THINKS this dozer line scouting is still going to take place… and is patiently waiting for Ball to return to do that…

          ;…but he doesn’t have a damn RADIO.

          So now there’s no way to even TELL the guy to load that dozer up and get the hell out of there.

          The ONLY way that is going to happen is for Cory Ball to ( somehow ) physically get back out there and TELL him to get out of there.

          Rather than drive the BR Chase Truck + Trailer back out there just to do THAT… someone offers Ball the ATV just to get back out there to tell Paul all bets are off and to fully evacuate.

          But now more “Promise interruptus” kicks in.

          It took just slightly longer to GET that ATV than was thought… and Ball’s attempt to get back out to Paul / Dozer just to tell him to evacuate all fell apart and he never made it any farther back than Lakewood and Manzanita.

          The reason we can still assume that the lack of a radio had everything to do with what was going down here is because IF Paul Morin really DID have a radio with him… there is absolutely no reason for him to have turned up on the “missing persons list” circa 5:16 PM when the DPS Ranger 58 Helicopter first took to the air to start searching for everyone being listed as “missing”.

          Burnover or not… if dozer operator Paul Morin had had a radio then even before Ranger 58 took off at 5:16 PM they would have known he had survived and there would have been no need to tell Ranger 58 to be looking for him.

          Somebody really, really needs to talk to Yavapai County Public Works employee Paul Morin…and ask HIM what the hell he was doing back there that ended up putting him on the same “missing persons” list as Granite Mountain.

          What in the hell did HE think Cory Ball was “doing”?

          WHY wasn’t he loading that dozer onto the LOBOY and getting the hell out of there… right behind Ball and the BR Chase truck?

          What did HE ( Morin ) believe was supposed to happen that was keeping HIM from evacuating?

          Reply

          • Correction for above. Wrong vehicle count.

            >> I said…
            >>
            >> Couple that “unplanned” activity with it taking longer
            >> to RTO and arrange thta 4 vehicle convoy out of there
            >> than they thought it would take…

            It was more like SEVEN vehicles that had to get all loaded up and convoyed out of the Youth Camp ( not counting Equibel’s stuff and that Peeples Valley Engines ).

            The CONVOY that Frisby and Brown were directly responsible for was…

            2 Blue Ridge Carriers
            1 Blue Ridge Chase truck ( the other one was down south ).
            1 GM Supt Truck ( Brendan driving )
            1 GM Chase Truck ( BR Hothshot driving )
            2 GM Crew Carriers ( BR Hotshots driving )

            And bringing up the rear…

            1 Blue Ridge Polaris Ranger UTV with Frisby and Brown in it.

            Reply

          • Gotcha, WTKTT. Copy.

            I really appreciate your laying out, in exquisite and almost painful detail, these various possible scenarios. They all make sense.

            I think where I’m still a tiny bit stuck is at that point where you wrote:

            “It’s just a gut feeling… but I really believe Cory Ball could have either been promised ( or he, himself, was just assuming ) that the moment he got that BR Chase + Trailer to the RHR… that he could basically just jump right into the Polaris Ranger and shoot right back out to Paul Morin / dozer.”

            For me, I guess, all things considered, it would depend on whether that was, indeed, a promise or an assumption.

            Given the situation, those two things could be very very different.

            Which is why I’m sitting here cogitating that I don’t think, all things considered, given how things were going that day, Cory would have ASSUMED that, simply by being surrounded by the rest of the Blue Ridge Hotshots at the Ranch House Restaurant, that that would have guaranteed him the use of the ATV, or, for that matter, any other of their vehicles.

            So, I would, therefore, guess that without a PROMISE of that ATV or a truck, he would never had left Paul/Justin Morin with HIS promise that he would be back pronto, especially given how much the fire was intensifying and heading their direction.

            And, possibly, there even could be a third possibility. Miscommunication. We know how much of a factor THAT played in this fire. I was watching, last night, a painfully responsible presentation regarding an escaped prescribed fire in Arizona. One of the biggest factor the burn boss talked about was just that — miscommunication.

            On the other hand, I’m still not totally convinced, all things considered, that Cordes and Musser didn’t include NAILING, all things considered, a known and nimble vehicle (the ATV at the YFD) for Cory to use, given that doing that would have been relatively simple and quick. And doing that before they assigned him that task. I think there was time for that to happen in the timeline we have.

            And so that’s why I’m still thinking, given the uncertainties Cory was facing regarding getting a vehicle from Blue Ridge unless one was PROMISED (and as we now see that promise was not a guarantee) that the SOLIDEST (and fairly easy to make SOLID) plan would have been for Cordes and Musser to set that in stone by calling the YFD and making sure it was there and available before assigning this whole operation to Cory Ball.

            And, of course, since, as Bob wrote above, this whole thing was, in fact ““a last minuet shit plan with no real knowledge or research to carry it out,” it could very well be that your “serious case of ‘Promise interruptus'” scenario could very very very well be the case.

            Maybe Cordes and Musser were totally relying on Cory Ball’s promised/assumed/miscommunicated version of “Yeah, I can get back out there real quick no problem” optimism to carry their plan forward.

            And maybe they weren’t or didn’t think they had to be.

            That being said, though, it may be that we are not going to be able, without more information, to refine this narrative any more than we have.

            Which means my possible narrative plus your two possible narratives.

            Which is WAY more than we had a week ago.

            And that is because Joy brought us a question about a FOIA filing they had made because someone had asked them about how to find out more about a dozer hitting their house which led to us seeing those actual dozer orders which delineated who exactly was operating which dozers and when, which REALLY helped us refine this

            And because Joy also brought us a photo that showed Cory Ball at a house down closer to 89 (a house that was tragically burned down to the ground) which helped us refine Cory’s timeline, which then helped me figure out what had to have happened when in order for that white vehicle to have been able to get Cory to the YFD when it did to pick up that ATV, and, thus WHOSE truck that could have been.

            Which led to my discerning that, in fact, the easiest peasiest answer to that question would have been Paul Musser.

            So this all goes to show, as Joy and WTKTT have been saying all along, even the seemingly most insignificant piece of EVIDENCE regarding this fire could turn out to be VERY VERY VERY important in terms of fitting together the pieces of the puzzle that make up the Yarnell Hill Wildfire.

            But I also want to add that, some times we need more than a hint or a vague description or a single photo to really be able to integrate something in to the ongoing timeline.

            There’s absolutely no magic (including digital) in this. It’s fairly dogged work, like ground-pounding, albeit without the physical effort. It’s this little piece and then this little piece and then this little piece.

            I’ve spent the past three days, almost 24/7 picking my way through this, and this is about the sixth or seventh time I’ve tried to pick my way through this in the past more than a year.

            It’s really like trying, by trial and error, to find the puzzle pieces that fit themselves, relatively comfortably, within the various and sundry and MANY holes that we have, still, in the narrative.

            Reply

            • And, now that I wrote all of that, I am going back and looking again at this:

              “It’s just a gut feeling… but I really believe Cory Ball could have either been promised ( or he, himself, was just assuming ) that the moment he got that BR Chase + Trailer to the RHR… that he could basically just jump right into the Polaris Ranger and shoot right back out to Paul Morin / dozer.”

              So. OK. I spent ten years of my life leading groups on backpacking trips in the Grand Canyon. And, after that, back in Albuquerque, being a Girl Scout Leader for seven years (having been a Girl Scout – on horseback – for about eleven years and a Camp Counselor/Asst Horseback Director for three).

              I was never face-t0-face with the insanity of a wildfire. But I dealt with a LOT of other versions of insanity that the Wilderness plus People can hand you.

              Based on that, I don’t even REMOTELY believe what you wrote there would have been believable by anybody with any kind of “experience in the field,” including Cory Ball.

              NOTHING EVER happens that way, in reality “in the field.”

              And NOBODY that ever spends any significant percentage of their lives in THAT field ever counts on any kind of that kind of predictability.

              Even WITHOUT a wildfire blowing up and reversing its direction all around them.

              I just want to say that for the record.

              I just don’t think Cory Ball was assuming any of that, with or without a promise. I know I wouldn’t have. But, then I also “know” I wouldn’t have gone down into, much less led a group down into. that bowl of manzanita under those circumstances.

              So what the hey do I even know????

              But truly, I don’t think what you wrote, even though you wrote it in all honesty, was, for the reasons I’ve just written above, at play here.

              I just don’t believe there was any reason for Cory Ball (who was no fool or no neophyte) to have believed or felt that way.

              Which is why I’m still willing to BET that Gary Cordes and Paul Musser made sure to make a RESERVATION for that ATV before they handed that assignment off to Cory Ball, who, in turn said to Paul/Justin, something along the lines of “Stay put. I’m taking the truck to the Ranch House, and then I’m coming RIGHT back on an ATV to re-connect with you.”

              Because I don’t think Cory would have accepted that assignment and left that guy and that dozer without being able to say something like that.

              Even though, as it all played out, exactly as you termed it “Promise interruptus.”

              But for those of us who have spent large chunks of our lives doing stuff in “wild” environments plus people, we all know that “Promise interruptus” is the norm.

              Which is why we learn, often the hard way, to NEVER EVER make a promise that you don’t absolutely KNOW you’re not going to be, realistically speaking, able to keep.

              Which is why I don’t think Cory Ball made that potentially unreliable “promise” to that dozer operator until Cordes/Musser made that potentially vastly more reliable promise to him.

              Reply

              • The caveat here being that, even though I’m currently thinking Cordes/Musser made a promise that they KNEW they could keep to Cory Ball, which, in turn was what gave Cory Ball the security to, in turn, make HIS promise to the dozer operator (and, actually, these things do really matter and register in peoples minds who actually do this stuff – not always but for the most part because we get this stuff)…………………….

                …………in the end, unfortunately, even through all of this trying to pin down promises of delivery and such probably helped Cory Ball, relatively confidently, fit himself into this plan and do his part to carry it out, until he couldn’t ………………………..

                ………………..because, as Bob wrote “it was a last minuet shit plan with no real knowledge or research to carry it out.”

                I guess that’s the great Shakespearian conundrum regarding this chapter of the narrative of this fire.

                Reply

                  • Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
                    Where most it promises; and oft it hits
                    Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.

                    Helena – All’s Well That Ends Well (II, i, 145-147)

                    More Irony: That this quote is in a play called “All’s Well That Ends Well”.

                    Reply

              • >> Marti said…
                >>
                >> Which is why I don’t think Cory Ball made that
                >> potentially unreliable “promise” to that dozer
                >> operator until Cordes/Musser made that potentially
                >> vastly more reliable promise to him.

                Strong argument… and I have to agree.

                My ONLY thinking ( leading to that ‘gut’ feeling ) was that there *might* have been some radio conversation that, while certainly not a full PROMISE, simply went something like this…

                ———————————————-
                Brian Frisby: Cory… we are pulling out. RIGHT NOW. I need you to ride the dozer back to where the Chase with trailer is and get our Chase out of there. We are heading to that Ranch House Restaurant RIGHT NOW. Take the Chase there. Do you copy?

                Cory Ball: Copy that. See ya at the restaurant.
                ———————————————————–

                That’s it. Nothing more. Nothing less.

                But that simply left Ball with the EXPECTATION that by the time HE got the Chase to the RHR… Frisby ( with BR UTV ) and the rest of his crewmates WOULD already be there.

                But your argument is much stronger than mine.

                Here’s just one more thing to consider ( which supports YOUR estimation of how it went down ).

                Yarnell Fire Chief Jim Koile was up at the Model Creek Elementary School ICP. He was the designated “Medical Officer”.

                When OPS2 Paul Musser realized he needed to get out in the field…Chief Jim Koile might have been standing right there with him and was now totally aware Musser was “headed out on the fire”… even down to Yarnell.

                YFD Chief Koile might have actually SAID to Musser, at that time…

                “Paul… there’s a fully gassed ATV sitting at the YFD station with the keys in it. If you need it… it’s yours”.

                Koile might not have had any idea what was going down on the south end at that point… but if OPS2 Paul Musser was now going to be “jumping in” on the fire as the second active “Field OPS” on that end of the fire… Koile might have been just being helpful and thought Musser *might* need his own ATV to “bomb around” on once he got down there.

                So Musser may have left the ICP fully armed with the knowldege that ATV was fully available to him ( or anyone else who might need it ) once he got down there to Yarnell.

                I don’t know what happened to Chief Jim Koile after the news came out that he had killed that little girl and buried her in the desert and he was forced to resign…

                …but if the “wrongful death” lawsuits got to trial you can be sure someone’s going to FIND Chief Koile and he will be just one of a LOOOOOOOOOONG list of witnesses being called to the stand.

                Reply

          • And absolutely YES to this:

            “Somebody really, really needs to talk to Yavapai County Public Works employee Paul Morin…and ask HIM what the hell he was doing back there that ended up putting him on the same “missing persons” list as Granite Mountain.

            What in the hell did HE think Cory Ball was “doing”?”

            Reply

            • Especially since Cory Ball is under a federally imposed gag order and can’t say a word about any of this until he is called to a witness stand in a lawsuit.

              Reply

              • It is actually really doubtful that even the ‘wrongful death’ court proceedings will be able to put any of those Blue Ridge Hotshots on an actual ‘witness stand”.

                If the FEDS dig in on that… the same ‘authority’ and ‘reasons’ they were asserting to block them from being interviewed or deposed might be enough to keep them out of a courtroom as well.

                A Touhy request is basically all the attorneys will be able to do… and the FEDS already (successfully) beat down ADOSH’s Touhy request.

                It WILL be a little different, though.

                If the gloves come off AGAIN on this… now it’s a Federal District Judge who is overseeing the requests for people to appear in HIS court… and so the ‘Gloves’ are a little bigger and thicker than what ADOSH had to work with.

                Reply

  95. FYI – and just in case anybody is interested, I am starting my sabbatical from this strangely addictive blog or thread or citizen’s investigation…RIGHT NOW. I am going to start writing on the last chapter of my book which is going to be about the Granite Mountain Hotshots, or at least as much as I can find out and confirm, and about their involvement in the Yarnell Hill Fire. So…if you are wondering whey I didn’t respond to something addressed to me, it is not that I am being rude, I didn’t see it, please send me an email and I will respond.

    I want to thank everyone who has emailed me and offered to provide me background information about the GMIHC, I will be contacting each one of you asking follow up questions.

    Reply

    • I don’t care a whit if you don’t reply to this, Gary, I just want you and the world to know how much I really really really appreciate everything you have contributed to this ……. conversation. Truly.

      Thank you and

      Namaste!

      Reply

  96. Robert says

    August 5, 2013 at 10:15 am

    I knew these guys very well. I grieve daily…

    reply by Joy:
    Why in the start of this IM blog people who knew the men came on here but then stopped…it is hearing their stories and seeing their photos and accounts to help all of us properly assess the human factors…It is not just firefighters, hikers, and homeowners…it is EVERYONE that counts…

    Reply

    • Julie says

      December 19, 2013 at 2:31 pm

      …But of course everyone will blame Eric…hes no here to defend himself from the politics of a municipal hotshot team and their cronies.

      reply by Joy:
      Exactly Julie. There should not be the mind set of blame and I had three top Arizona lawyers share to me exactly what it means..CRONIES…I would of never KNEW the word or its definition before this fire from many elements to the fire aftermath which includes HOW Rowle Simmons delivered a message…All the homeowners involved were greatly disappointed. also I learned a lot in my short time communication with a fine man James J. Belanger, esq. (ht tp ://w ww.cblawyers.c om /attorneys/james-belanger/ ) I learned from him the IMPORTANCE to be short, simple and to the point. I am a natural born rambler.

      Reply

      • Elizabeth Groom says

        July 30, 2013 at 5:20 pm

        are you the same lady who works for Forestry in another state?

        if you are still following the blog—let us know…

        Reply

        • Danny King says

          July 31, 2013 at 11:07 pm
          From My experience (Over 17 years in wild land firefighting in southern Cal., three burn overs, two with My hand crew, I never deployed a shelter) the erratic wind condition was the main factor I am not sure if shelters can be deployed in wind greater than 25 miles per hr.! I heard wind was gusting to 40 m.p.h., then the fire would great even more wind.
          ——————-
          reply by Joy: how come you commented and left—it is experience and folks like you who should be here…why is it WIldFire with Bill Gabbert seems to have the firefighters speak there but not here? What is it about this site? I mean it was even a highlight in my case????? strange….I would like to know why we met more in person than on here or even wildfire from the firefighter community

          Reply

      • Sonny just pass by me asking if I emailed the videos to Paul…cold case guy…

        I just searched—answer is different video and I do not think it went to Paul Chastain but maybe Brendan Fillingim

        Reply

    • You go girl!!

      Thanks for these links. To remind us all.

      Esse Quam Videri

      The motto of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. And for better or worse, in spite of all their faults, they did just that.

      What is with all of this “We will never forget” branding????

      When are wildland fire-fighters going to “Be rather than Seem” regarding this?

      It’s THEIR lives that are on the line. And the USFS doesn’t give a flying f***, apparently, given their actions.

      They are SEEMING rather than BEING.

      Does Arizona Forestry? Given their submissions to Judge Mosesso, I don’t see that they do, either.

      They are also SEEMING rather than BEiNG.

      Those of us posting here for however long we have been posting here can’t do a DAMN THING to protect your lives without your help and your standing up for yourselves and your brothers and sisters.

      Maybe you think we are funny and entertaining chasing down the “rabbit-holes” we chase down.

      But all of those “rabbit-holes” have very much to do with WHAT WENT WRONG on this fire, and most of those WHAT WENT WRONG details were about things that put both wildland fire-fighters and civilians at GREAT risk of losing their lives.

      When are YOU and your BROTHERS and SISTERS planning to stand up for yourselves?

      OK I know it’s fire season and you all are very BUSY.

      So just make sure that whoever is your overhead is actually concerned about your life.

      Because, apparently, neither the United States Forest Service nor the Arizona Department of Forestry actually are, given the evidence.

      Reply

      • The only thing I can say is no one has control over Human Factors. They were stacked like Dominos on this fire. The Forest Service was not in charge they may have already changed Type 2 Criteria and qualifications. All The Safety rules in Fire Fighting can not help if you ignore them. The State is the Controlling agency here they have to provide the answers.

        Reply

    • Excellent comment that started our journey to LOOK at this man Gary Olson…

      Gary Olson says

      September 8, 2013 at 8:19 pm

      At least John Dougherty has the courage of his convictions to put his name on what he writes, and he stands by his reporting. If someone has pointed out a VALID error he has made in trying to break into a very close knit and highly specialized society where most people are conditioned to keep their mouths shut and toe the company line, he has made corrections.

      Sent do, dispatched to, gone to, deployed to a fire…who cares? What is important here, is that everyone does everything they can to make sure such an anomaly, an aberration, an event that is not only horrific but is unprecedented (do you GET that Mr. WFF, study the Loop Fire, the Battlement Creek Fire and the South Canyon Fire and then come back and spout your nonsense) in the history of wildland firefighting is not ever repeated by the blending of wildland firefighting with structural firefighting again…ever.

      Reply

      • another great comment from Gary:

        Gary Olson says

        September 22, 2013 at 6:34 pm

        The leading voice in wildland firefighting safety for at least a generation, Dr. Ted Putnam, refused to sign the South Canyon Fire on Storm King Mountain investigation because it was a cover-up along with other fire investigations that he was on that he knows were also cover-ups…

        Reply

        • I am going through BACKWARDS…BACK ON WORDS…Dusty Face the iguana said too…there is an old comment we missed so I am going back and when I see a comment that has kept me here I am posting it again…if it has a question I will answer it…
          great one here:
          NV says

          October 17, 2013 at 9:41 am
          Thanks for your continued, conscientious effort to bring out the truth of what happened, particularly in light of the enormous pressure to not discuss this candidly. I am bothered that official records seem silent as to whether cell records were comprehensively examined for that day. Likewise, since newspaper reportshttp://www.dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubsectionID=1&ArticleID=124023 state the Yarnell chief had not simply a manslaughter conviction in the 70s, from actions of his as an adult who was already a firefighter, but a manslaughter conviction where he had panicked, buried a still breathing 3 year old girl in the desert, and initially attempted to present a cover-up story to authorities — well, a history of that type of cover-up does raise further issues as well. That the official report for the Yarnell fire made no mention of it suggests to me, by itself, that either they didn’t do a thorough investigation, despites the time involved, or that they did know and didn’t write a forthcoming report. That’s one fact of itself the public really needed to know about.

          Reply

            • No one answered this person and I think it deserves an answer BY SOMEONE WHO WORKS IN THE FIELD OR KNOWS not by folks like me:

              J. Stout says

              October 17, 2013 at 10:03 pm

              Is there anyone who can answer this question for me: Back when the Prescott FD fuels crew (with Eric Marsh as foreman) first attained certification as a hotshot crew, how was Marsh able to automatically be appointed as a Hotshot Superintendent? In firefighting, don’t the positions of “Superintendent” of this particular type of crew have Minimum Qualifications which specify a certain amount, and a particular type, of previous experience on a hotshot crew (in order for a candidate to be eligible and qualified for one of those positions)? How does a person just sort of leap frog into something like that?

              Reply

              • Dr. Ted Putnam- do you see this comment? salacious tales? Help me understand these kind of human factors Dr. Ted Putnam and how people can write such a thing? You did not just hike with Holly and her husband with us only but we have since done additional hikes and in those hikes you took them to see it from our eyes and the GMHS. You wanted to get a feel of it all. I can see just the one hike but if YOU are so focused to the Mann Gulch and take the extra time with an old logger/miner/cowboy and housewife/desert walker—no one special— than that tells us the man who did not sign off on a previous fire that the officials Sonny told me did not give you the proper treatment to help them figure things out than there is a possibility there is more details to this fire and the people labeling all of us…”gossip”, “Rumors”, smoking gun”, ““conspiracy” “whitewashed” “snow job”, “armchair quarterbacks/firefighters”…what IS the human factor in those judgments??? Not deserved either.

                fyrestorm says

                October 18, 2013 at 10:35 am

                All I can do is shake my head at the series of salacious tales, all reaching for someone to blame. Expecting/promoting some “conspiracy” “whitewashed” “snow job” from any government entity regardless of facts presented and available.
                Some (not all of your) retired professionals are noting more than armchair quarterbacks/firefighters, only looking to say anything to feed their own ego in an effort to feel relevant. Having worked with some of your experts mentioned/quoted through my career I can tell you that I personally give little credibility to anything they are assuming.

                Having intimate knowledge of the incident starting from the initial reports, there are some things I can agree on. More could have been done before [Saturday specifically]. On Friday night, the factors leading to the decision not to take direct action that night were prudent and justified. Saturday could have and should have been more aggressively approached (the opportunity existed and recommendations were made by multiple resource assisting) [which was very briefly mentioned in the report], especially since weather was in their favor for much of the early part of the day. Once the front on Saturday afternoon passed, the area was now competing for limited resources [aviation and crews] with a few other areas that picked up new starts and/or increased activity [Dean Peak]. By 1700ish on 6/29 both Yarnell and Dean Peak were off to the races. The rest is history and is consistent with what is in the report.

                Reply

                • Something I said since day one…this person posted and I agree:

                  NV says

                  October 22, 2013 at 10:27 am

                  Hopefully OSHA dives into the cell records, too. Your gut is the same as many people’s. Cells get used all the time to among other things say things one doesn’t want to broadcast. Communication via cell would be a logical explanation for the radio silence. Otherwise I think one is left with a simple spontaneous decision to both stay off the radio and to move in a way that seems very illogical to keep silent about. They need to be looking at EVERYONE’S cell records, particularly during that critical period of radio silence.

                  Reply

                    • Does this comment sound like an EGO man who is a part of a gossip column?

                      doubt it.

                      see:

                      Gary Olson says

                      October 23, 2013 at 2:38 pm

                      Great article John! Your work may save wildland firefighter’s lives some day.

                    • In this video-
                      when Donut felt blessed…he also says at 3:06/7;45 that “I want to make a statement that I will always stand behind…” skip to 3:45 and he says “there was a lot of other people there that knew what happen…”
                      that OTHERS has not really been out there talking about this…Dr Ted Putnam says the ones NOT talking are the ones to LOOK at…
                      We should start with Morin…

                    • so Mike Dudley says keep in mind the structure….
                      GMHS— I know that.
                      UNDER
                      Prescott Fire Dept.
                      SPONSORED by
                      Arizona Division of Forestry
                      to MEET
                      NWCE Interagency guidelines to be certified as a Full IHC Hotshot Crew.

                      what’s changed?

                      1949 to June 30, 2013?
                      You said it there…some similarities?
                      Yet let us look at Mann Gulch sir.
                      That was assessed improperly so are you saying the YHF was assessed improperly too?

                      Mike Dudley-
                      I along with Sonny spent much time with this man…he had a lot of important documents and information that told a different story to Mann Gulch. He is the one who said he is proud of us hikers for trying to keep this “alive”…he is one of our top reasons we keep at this besides the children of the loved ones I want them to look back and SEE there was a group of people SEEKING more clarity so that they can rest assure all areas were looked at when it came to why their father died…

                      (htt p:/ /www.rolltide.com/sports/c-xctrack/spec-rel/050114aab. ht m l, h ttp ://smokejumpers. c o m/index.php/obituaries/getitem/obituaries_id=745, h tt p://w w w .legacy.c om/obituaries/tuscaloosa/obituary.aspx?pid=170703014, ht t p:/ /johnmacleanbook s.co m/SmokejumperMagazine071 4.pd f

            • What Joy is doing here is including the link that she is referring to in her own name. I don’t know how or why but whatever.

              To read what she is talking about, either click on her name (or, as I do, right click on it to open her link in a new window) to read what she is writing about.

              And thank you Joy, for all of this re-membering.

              Reply

  97. **
    ** THE WALB TV STATION PHOTO

    Reply to Marti Reed post on June 12, 2015 at 7:40 pm

    >> Marti wrote…
    >>
    >> OK. Here’s the location of that photo.
    >>
    >> It has a slideshow of a bunch of photos that people sent in to, apparently,
    >> the WALB News 10 (abc) website, which is really weird because WALB is
    >> an Albany, Georgia, website. But they have a really great collection of Yarnell
    >> stuff on their website.
    >>
    >> Some of that bunch of photos I had seen before, and some of that bunch
    >> I hadn’t. Especially this one.
    >>
    >> The photo I’m describing is the 24th image in the slide show.
    >>
    >> I’m seriously curious who took it, because I have a hard time believing that
    >> just some random person walked into this group and took this photograph.
    >>
    >> But maybe they did.
    >>
    >> The caption says:
    >>
    >> “VIEWER’S PHOTOS OF YARNELL HILL FIRE
    >> Firefighters gather along a road that led them to the fireline.
    >> (Photo credit: Viewer-submitted)”

    http://www.walb.com/slideshow?widgetid=84011

    >> The photo also includes that Wickenburg Fire Chief that drove that ubiquitous
    >> big red truck that I, for the longest time (because of its timeline) mistakenly
    >> thought Paul Musser must have been driving.

    Having now had a chance to look at this photo again… I can CONFIRM the actual LOCATION.

    It was, in fact, taken right there by the Ranch House Restaurant, and it is not ( as we suspected at first ) a photo of any gathering of FFs farther NORTH on Highway 89 in that still-unknown location where SPGS1 Gary Cordes was supposed to be acting as the third ‘lookout’ for the men in Harper Canyon.

    The FFs in this photo are actually standing almost directly across from where Lakewood drive meets Highway 89, right there in the road in front of the Ranch House Restaurant. If you look really closely on the right edge of the photo you can actually see just a part of the Lakewood drive pavement as it is ‘meeting’ Highway 89 there.

    The person who took the photo ( looking SOUTH on Highway 89 ) was standing exactly here…

    34.212975, -112.755476

    Other location keys…

    – The SIGNAGE and the POLES visible on the left edge of the photo. That is not the actual Ranch House Restaurant there on the left edge… but it IS that ‘other shop’ at the south end of the RHR parking lot with the 3 little windows on the north side.

    – That ‘spike’ sticking up in the background from the top of the White Helmet of the FF that is dominating the left side of the photo ( the guy whose face is fully seen and is wearing that chest harness ) is the same ‘spike’ that sits out in front of that building at the south end of the RHR parking lot.

    – The yellow road sign on the RIGHT side of the photo. That’s the one right across from the RHR that says “Speed Reduced Ahead”.

    – The telephone pole seen in the background just to the left of that yellow road sign. It’s the one that is sitting up on that hill there just to the south of the RHR and on the west side of the road.

    So all of this means the TIME on this photo was WELL after the deployment.

    The FIRES that are seen burning in the background are well beyone the RHR and off in the foothills there to the south of Glen Ilah.

    The fire has ALREADY pretty much burned through most of Glen Ilah by the time this photo was taken.

    So that could STILL be Cory Ball there underneath that Blue Ridge Hotshot Helmet on the right side of the photo… but this really could not be a capture of him meeting with Cordes and getting that original “go scout emergency dozer line to protect Glen Ilah” assignment… as was, at first, suspected.

    In one of the UNREDACTED parts of his heavily redacted Unit Logs… Cory Ball himself admits to receiving this “go scout more dozer line” assignment from Cordes… and that is the reason he borrowed the ATV from the Yarnell Hill Fire Department and was heading WEST back out to the far WEST end of Glen Ilah to (supposedly) rejoin the dozer operator ( who we now know was Yavapai County Public Works employee Paul Morin ).

    What we have never known ( and still don’t know ) is WHERE BR Hotshot Cory Ball was when he received this new emergency ‘assignment’ from SPGS1 Cordes.

    My best guess is still that Ball received this new assignment over the radio, while standing in the RHR parking lot, just after he had driven the Blue Ridge Chase Truck with the Polaris Ranger trailer attached over to the RHR parking lot.

    He had no access to his own unit’s Polaris Rangr UTV because Frisby and Brown were, at that moment, still actively using it over in the Shrine Youth Camp area and “pushing out’ the FFs who were still there.

    So someone ( still unknown ) offered him the ATV that had been sitting in the YFD fire station all day doing nothing at all… and then ( that same person? ) drove Ball over there to get it.

    Still just theory… but it would make sense and match the evidence we have so far.

    More later.

    Reply

      • Question for FFs… in the photo above… what is that BLUE THING that appears to be on the FACE of the Blue Ridge Hotshot in the right side of the photograph?

        Is that some kind of ‘breather unit’, or something?

        Reply

        • Good question and I would like to know what is going on with the guy to his right with his back to the camera, is he a smurf?

          Reply

        • Speaking as a digital photographer,

          I don’t think there’s anything on his face.

          I think it’s just the weirdness of the lighting and the shadowing.

          Reply

          • WTKTT– Looks like some bad color causing the Blue look.
            The thing attached to his hat and hanging down is a Nomex head and face cover to protect your neck and face from heat. No Air apparatus there.

            Reply

            • I suppose that’s correct, yes.

              Looking again… it appears that most probably directly BEHIND the camera was a YCSO or DPS police car with its neon-blue light rack going full blast… since ALL THREE of the FFs on the right side of the photo seem to be affected by ( and reflecting ) this ‘blue light’.

              Reply

    • Thanks, WTKTT. Gotcha.

      And, as I said way down below, I no longer think the Blue Ridge Hotshot in that photo is Cory Ball.

      And, yes, it’s still pretty uncertain in my own mind when Cory got that communique from Cordes to tackle that new assignment. And that may not matter. Or it may. And I would trust his notes more than I would trust the YIN.

      I’m still kinda wondering what that long xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx thing that happened before he got that assignment might have been. But that’s another speculative rabbit hole.

      And I’m also thinking that all of this plus all of whatever else was happening might have been so, perceptually, happening at the same time, that there may be some understandable time “jumbling” going on in Cory’s narrative.

      And I want to re-iterate here that I think that “Justin” may very well have been “Paul.” I just can’t think of anybody else that could have been “Justin.” As I wrote below, Trew didn’t go by the name “Rodgers,” either.

      So, at this time, I think Cory Ball was assigned by Cordes to tie in with the dozer operator.

      And I’m currently thinking Cordes was the one facilitating the loan of the Yarnell Fire Department ATV to Cory Ball.

      And every time I think this is some kind of pointless exercise in irrelevant futility, I have to remind myself that, as you wrote somewhere……………………

      ……..it is possible that this last-ditch hail-mary “plan” Cordes was assigning Cory Ball to might also have had an influence on Eric Marsh.

      Reply

      • >> Marti wrote…
        >>
        >> ……..it is possible that this last-ditch hail-mary “plan” Cordes was
        >> assigning Cory Ball to might also have had an influence on Eric Marsh

        That is why I believe it DOES matter exactly WHEN this ‘last ditch effort’ got hatched in Gary Cordes’ mind… and when he started issuing any ‘directives’ to even start setting the plan in motion ( like even requesting that Ball “and one other” see if it was even going to be possible ).

        It’s the kind of “last-ditch-effort” plan that even if it was just beginning to come together… if certain resources are going to be involved then you would want them moving towards the location of this effort RIGHT NOW… no time to lose.

        Gary Cordes, in his Unit Logs and in BOTH of his interviews with investigators, seemed to be making a purposeful, concerted effort to NOT mention ANYTHING about this ’emergency plan’.

        So that’s really why we do NOT know the exact TIMING here.

        Maybe that “xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx” redaction in Cory Ball’s log would help place an exact TIME on when Cordes gave him his new marching orders… maybe not.

        Here’s what you also have to wonder.

        If Ball rode the dozer to the bottom of the Sesame Clearing area along with Yavapai County Public Works employee Paul Morin driving the dozer… and Cory Ball then ( before he did anything for Cordes ) had to fulfill his responsibility as a Blue Ridge Hotshot and get that Blue Ridge Chase + Trailer the flock OUT of that area…

        …then why wasn’t Paul Morin right behind him with the LOBOY + Dozer.

        I think that has always been “telling us something”.

        I think it tells us that you may be right about Cory Ball getting this “new assignment” from Cordes WHILE he and Paul Morin were driving south in the Sesame Clearing area towards the LOBOY and BR Chase staging area.

        I think it tells us that Paul Morin did NOT drive the dozer right up onto the LOBOY as soon as they got there… because he was already under the impression that he would still the dozer ground-active and ready to participate in this last-ditch-effort.

        But Cory HAD to get that BR Chase + Trailer out of there FIRST… because that’s what his A-Number-One ( Supt Brian Frisby ) had already told him to do.

        So Cory Ball told Paul Morin… “You wait right here. I’ll be RIGHT BACK and we’ll get on this emergency dozer line scouting thing”.

        But Cory Ball never made it back to him.

        The farthest he made it back was the intersection of Lakewood and Manzanita, and the fire was already coming into Glen Ilah.

        Paul Morin had given his Blue Ridge loaner radio BACK to Treuheart Brown before even exiting the Cutover Trail area… and so he had NO RADIO ‘back there’.

        So no one knew what really happened to him… and that’s why someone ( ?? who ) added his name to the list of “missing persons” that DPS Ranger 58 chopper was supposed to be “looking for”.

        Notice also that while there is all the evidence in the world that DPS Ranger 58 was told this dozer operator was “missing”… there is still NO EVIDENCE regarding how ( or when ) he was FOUND… and then REMOVED from that “missing person” list.

        If he really did get TRAPPED back there waiting for Cory Ball to return and had to ride out the burnover in either the cab of the dozer or the cab of the LOBOY… then when did he EMERGE or otherwise let anyone know he had survived?

        We still don’t know.

        If anyone bumps into Yavapai County Public Works employee Paul Morin… tell him to come here and sign in.

        We have a few questions we’d like to ask him.

        .

        Reply

        • Copy. I think you are spot on.

          I just woke up and I’m trying to go back to sleep, but I’m reading all of this, and thinking about it.

          I hope that before/as Gary goes on his sabbatical and writes the last chapter of his book, he thinks about this also. As will I, also, given that I have decided to “retire” from this unpaid gig on July 1.

          Because I think that this piece of this story (and yes I agree that Gary Cordes conveniently managed to avoid talking about it in his ADOSH interviews — and maybe that means that ADOSH, when they were interviewing him didn’t even KNOW about this SCATHING description of the fire provided by Frisby/Trew/Cory Ball) needs to be factored in to anybody’s thinking.

          I’m still agreeing with Sonny that something other than Eric/Jesse’s violating the 10 and 18 (for whatever reasons) is at play here.

          I think you may be really right that the reason Paul/Justin didn’t (as far as we know, even under the PRESSURE, remember, coming from SOMEWHERE – as early as about 3PM – to send that dozer up to the north end of the fire) immediately load that dozer onto that Lo-Boy and drive it out of that staging area HAD to have been because something ELSE was “happening.”

          Otherwise there’s absolutely no reason why he would not have just loaded it and driven it out of Glen Ilah.

          I have, over the course of this, been really really uncertain whether or not the dozer actually got moved from Glen Ilah to “somewhere” on 89. But I think the narrative from Cory Ball is weighted in on the side of that that didn’t happen.

          Especially so, given that my Yarnell Fire math equation currenly says that it appears to me that “Justin” equals Paul.

          There is just, otherwise, absolutely no reason why Paul/Justin wouldn’t have loaded that dozer onto that LoBoy and driven it out of Glen Ilah to somewhere else, which, apparently (according to Cory Ball, as far as I can tell), he didn’t.

          Reply

          • And, given the fact that, at that point, he had no radio, and thus no idea what was happening, that underscores what you are saying, also.

            Reply

            • Just a simple reflection If Cory Ball thought that he needed to move the Chase truck and Trailer out of that staging area because it was unsafe. Why would the Dozer operator not load and haul ass out of there too. It makes no since that the Dozer would stay in a unsafe spot that Ball hulled out of to protect the truck and trailer.

              If the Dozer came from the City did the operator just move it back to there compound and park it?

              If he was burned over and road it out why did the ADOSH investigation not include the Dozer operator in their Close calls?

              Reply

              • Bob~

                I don’t think Cory decided to move the truck because it was unsafe.

                His notes say:

                “Instructed to xxxxxxxxxxxxxx and move to HWY 89.”

                What I’m guessing is behind those x’s is something like “get the truck”.

                I think it makes sense that he was instructed by Brian or Trew, at about the time or a tiny bit after Brian pulled Brendan off, simply to move the truck to where B/T figured they were all ultimately headed at that point.

                And, yes, the fact that the dozer seems to not have also been moved from the staging area to 89, also, has always been a total head-scratcher.

                And there’s a TON of confusion around that.

                Especially given that, earlier, there was an order/request for the dozer to be moved up to the north end of the fire at the time (about 3 PM) the fire was headed right towards the Incident Command Post.

                But there’s no indication that that happened. Cory’s photo of the dozer and the Blue Ridge Hotshots on the cutover was taken at 3:30 PM.

                The only reason I believe the dozer wasn’t also moved to 89 is because of the statement in the YIN:

                “Ball got a quad from FD, and was trying to get on the dozer line to tie in w/ Justin to check it”

                The problem is that there is so very little information available about just what happened.

                I mean, really, all I’ve posted is about all there is.

                I don’t think ADOSH knew about this, or caught the significance of it when they were interviewing Gary Cordes. All they had, at that point, I think, was the YIN.

                AZDF didn’t release the Blue Ridge Hotshots notes until early 2014.

                And so ADOSH didn’t ask Gary about it. Which means they also never learned about Gary’s “plan.” The only ones that caught up with Gary’s “plan” is us, via piecing things together.

                I’ve often thought it made more sense that the dozer would have also been moved to 89, at least. And I’m still not totally positive that that didn’t happen.

                But, via picking again through all of this, and re-thinking it again now with this photo from Joy, I’m beginning to think more and more that that didn’t happen, and that’s because, timing-wise, it makes more sense that Gary’s call to Ball came as Ball and the dozer were headed to or at the staging area at the top of Manzanita.

                That was happening between about 3:30-ish and 4-ish (via Cory’s photos). That’s when Gary and Musser were figuring out how to move more resources TOWARDS Yarnell and that’s exactly when, I think, Gary was conjuring up this plan to try to put more dozer line in off of Glen Ilah.

                The ONLY reason Paul/Justin would NOT have moved the dozer, also, to 89, imho, would have been because something had changed. Like an assignment from Gary Cordes to try to, as Ball wrote in his notes:

                “Structure group one assigns me and one other to locate possibility of dozer line to southwest of Yarnell.”

                The only thing we know about what happened after that is that (and I don’t have the reference right at the moment but it’s in someone’s ADOSH interview) the dozer then, later, got caught up in a downed power line (and I don’t, off the top of my head know when, exactly, this happened) heading to the southwest of Glen Ilah.

                And, then, it, around midnight, made it to the Helms place and put in that road up to the Deployment Site.

                (Actually, I was never totally sure WHICH dozer – because there was another one that arrived at the fire around 3 PM and headed up to the ICP, via photographs – was the one that put in that road until WTKTT just published those documents that he got from Joy).

                Sometimes every teensy tiny thing matters!!!

                I don’t know who was driving the dozer when it got stopped by the power line. But, timing-wise, I don’t think it was the second operator. I now think it had to have been Paul/Justin.

                And, SOMETIME, in the midst of all of that, the operator of the dozer “got put on” the list of MIAs that the DPS officer was given to look for.

                You wrote:

                “If he was burned over and road it out why did the ADOSH investigation not include the Dozer operator in their Close calls?”

                That is an absolutely good $64,000 question. Which is why WTKTT and Calvin and I have been relentlessly and LOUDLY asking that all along, whether anybody else was listening to us or not.

                I think they just didn’t get a Round Tuit.

                I’m guessing they are now, though.

                There’s a HUGE story here. And one that, I think, AZDF really really really doesn’t want ANYBODY to tell.

                Reply

                • I wrote:

                  “I think it makes sense that he was instructed by Brian or Trew, at about the time or a tiny bit after Brian pulled Brendan off, simply to move the truck to where B/T figured they were all ultimately headed at that point.”

                  And don’t forget, this is all happening at the same time BR was bumping the GM vehicles down Sesame to 89 and back up Shrine to the Youth Camp.

                  Apparently, they didn’t think they would need the utility truck and trailer at the Youth Camp and it made more sense to stage it at the Ranch House Restaurant.

                  I’m also now thinking that, of course, Cory would have notified Brian or Trew about what he and Paul/Justin were doing in the midst of all of this. And why.

                  They may have been too busy with other things to have paid a lot of attention to it, but I’m sure they basically knew.

                  And, I’m guessing they were also too busy to have conjured up and made the connections to get the YFD to loan the ATV to Cory.

                  I think Gary (and/or Musser) did that. And since that could have taken some time to arrange, I think that assignment to Cory and Paul/Justin had to have happened quite a bit before Cory got to the Ranch House Restaurant.

                  Reply

                  • And now I’m sitting here thinking that, with all this timing in my head,

                    it’s not impossible that Gary, not wanting to waste any precious minutes regarding this, COULD have had someone he was working with in that neighborhood just northeast of the Shrine Road/89 intersection, drive HIS TRUCK down to the RHR to drive Cory over to the YFD to pick up that ATV.

                    Gary would not have had time to do it himself, I don’t think, all things considered. But his TRUCK could have.

                    And his truck has a white hood.

                    I think he would have been trying to make sure nothing got lost to chance on this.

                    Of course it all did, in the long run. So much for careful planning!

                    Reply

                  • And, it also could have been Paul Musser in his truck driving over to the RHR to pick up Cory and drop him off at the YFD at 4:27 PM before then heading up Shrine Road at, according to his interview, about 4:30, after he sees Blue Ridge turning onto 89 towards the RHR.

                    I’m looking at my Paul Musser revised timeline, which I wrote after I discovered it was not him driving the red truck and most likely driving the State Fire Incident Command truck.

                    The last time-point I have for him is 3:55, when he and Gary were talking on 89. According to his interview, I think, he and Gary talked briefly after that and then he decided to head down to Yarnell.

                    So he had between 4 and 4:30 to be in Yarnell doing whatever.

                    Possibly including arranging and facilitating the hand-off of the ATV to Cory Ball?

                    That would have been totally easy-peasy for him to do.

                    Reply

              • And, quite frankly, after re-reading Brian/Trew/Cory’s YIN for about the 20th time, I’m now starting to think, all things considered, that when SOMEBODY related to SOMEBODY in some HIGH PLACE actually READ that, THAT’S when the USFS put their “gag order” on.

                It is ABSOLUTELY RELENTLESSLY SCATHING.

                The movie that gets made should actually be about those three people and the rest of their crew. And what happened to them AFTER, as much as DURING, June 30, 2013.

                Reply

                • And Mike Dudley was one of their interviewers.

                  So there’s that.

                  I’m guessing nobody even needed to read (much less proof-read) it.

                  Dudley already knew how much and who needed to be SAT ON.

                  Reply

                    • We ALSO can be almost certain now it was DURING that SAIT interview with Blue Ridge Hotshots when these “allegations of an argument’ were first made.

                      Mike Dudley would only reveal that nearly a YEAR later when he was talking to that roomful of FFs in Utah on June 20, 2014.

                      Dudley said those ‘allegations’ of an argument ‘about which way to go from that saddle’ came from MULTIPLE people ( not just one ).

                      It would certainly stand to reason that those ‘multiple people’ were all Blue Ridge Hotshots and these ‘alleged reports’ all happened during that one BR Hotshots SAIT interview.

                      All the more reason for the heavy redactions and the GAG order(s).

                      It’s also interesting to note that Arizona Forestry’s original decision to allow some ADOSH people to participate in the SAIT was reversed on or about the time of that original Blue Ridge SAIT interview.

                      It could be that following that interview ( where no ADOSH interviewer was present for some reason ) the decision was made that there was no way they were going to allow ADOSH to be hearing this stuff.

                      It’s also worth noting that in the ALJ Hearing file and as part of the back-and-forth discovery process… ADOSH has, in fact, requested ALL documents, emails or whatever evidence exists surrounding this original decision to kick ADOSH off of the SAIT investigation team.

                      ADOSH still wants to know WHY they were first invited to participate… and then a week or so after that suddenly ‘locked out of the room’.

                    • WTKTT~

                      Copy.

                      And you’re gonna LOVE what I just posted at the top of the page.

                      Happy 16 Days Before the Second Anniversary!

              • Reply to Bob Powers post on June 14, 2015 at 7:27 am

                >> Bob Powers said…
                >>
                >> Just a simple reflection If Cory Ball thought that
                >> he needed to move the Chase truck and Trailer
                >> out of that staging area because it was unsafe.
                >> Why would the Dozer operator not load and
                >> haul ass out of there too.

                Marti addressed this up above so I’m basically just ‘agreeing’.

                I don’t think it really was all that much a matter of feeling like it was totally UNSAFE at the time they were doing it.

                In other words… it wasn’t an emergency ( yet )… not down there at that south end of the Sesame Clearing.

                But with the Blue Ridge crew actively doing an RTO on the Cutover Trail and actively about to evacuate ALL vehicles over to the RHR… Frisby just really wanted that to be ALL BR vehicles… including the Chase + Trailer.

                I don’t think for one minute, as Cory Ball and Paul Morin rode that dozer back down to that Glen Ilah staging spot, that they thought they were in imminent danger.

                >> Bob Powers also wrote…
                >>
                >> It makes no since that the Dozer would stay in
                >> a unsafe spot that Ball hulled out of to protect
                >> the truck and trailer.

                Maybe dozer operator Paul Morin was just going along with whatever Cory Ball was telling him ( or not telling him ).

                If Cory Ball had told Paul Morin “Wait right here and I’ll be right back so we can do this dozer line scouting Gary Cordes wants us to do”… then maybe non-fireman Paul Morin thought there was nothing to worry about.

                I mean… if the Hotshot Fire Guy doesn’t seem to be nervous and thinks there’s plenty of time for him to run to the RHR and then get back here… then why should I be nervous?

                He’s the EXPERT, right?

                If that Hotshot guy thinks we’ve got plenty of time to do this ‘scouting’ stuff.. then that must be TRUE… right?

                >> Bob Powers also said…
                >>
                >> If he was burned over and road it out why did the
                >> ADOSH investigation not include the Dozer operator
                >> in their Close calls?

                Because Arizona Forestry AND all their employees that ADOSH interviewed did everything in their power to PREVENT ADOSH from ever discovering there was ever even a “missings person” report on the dozer operator… or any of the details of what was going on with that dozer that afternoon.

                ADOSH did not KNOW that this guy most likely was ANOTHER near fatality that day.

                And the ADOSH WFA contractors never put 2 and 2 together and ever even ASKED any questions about this.

                Reply

                • WTKTT and Bob:

                  Reading this right here, now, another question just popped up in my brain.

                  We have, on again off again, discussed who was RESPONSIBLE for the dozer and its operator, pretty much agreeing, if I remember correctly, that once the dozer left the Blue Ridge assignment at the cutover, and handed over his radio, he was no longer under their responsibility.

                  Does this whole thing change that? When Cory Ball accepted that assignment from Cordes/Musser, did that make, Cory the dozers Dozer Boss again?

                  Wouldn’t that have meant he really WAS responsible for what happened to it?

                  What would have been the consequences of that if the whole thing hadn’t been, essentially, erased from the investigative record?

                  Reply

  98. MOAP Summary Part 1

    I don’t know when or if I will ever finish my Mother Of All Posts (MOAP) and when I do, my MOAP will essentially be the last chapter of my book, Betrayed By Our Fire Gods. You can currently download Chapter 1 of my book for free at http://ourfiregods.com/primary/inmemeo.html
    FYI, I established a long time ago while I was working for the BLM what the difference is between me and a prostitute…nothing.

    Unfortunately, as I have said before, I do not have the skill set to write a book about the Yarnell Hill Fire. I might be able to put a chapter together for my book, at least I hope I can. In addition, the only way I can even write about human factors is to take what I can learn about the crew, especially Eric Marsh, and then parrot Dr. Ted Putnam. It will take somebody like him to really write about the human factors concept for that fire, even if he is a former smokejumper.

    Actually, smokejumpers are the true Special Forces in the wildland firefighting world, whereas as I have said, hotshots are the Marines. I did have the pleasure of meeting Dr. Putnam and listening to him speak when we were both Subject Matter Experts for the Battlement Creek Fire Disaster Staff Ride in 1976, in Grand Junction Colorado. And I do know some smokejumpers are not bad people, in fact, I even have ONE friend (hee hee) who is a former smokejumper and I think that fact proves I am not a bigoted person.

    So here is a synopsis of the inside information that I have regarding Eric Marsh and the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew. Obviously, I received this information from people who are hunkered down inside the wire in Prescott. It won’t do you any good to ask me anymore about them, because if I tell you any more, I won’t get any further valuable information that will in the end, help everyone to find out what the true lessons learned from the Yarnell Hill Fire are. In addition, this information was compiled from emails from more than one person. Nor will it do you any good to ask me if I have any more inside information…because I don’t, although I do hope to learn more in the future.

    I am writing about this now to get it off my to do list sooner rather than later so neither you nor I have to wait until I get my MOAP done. I am also writing about it now because I think this information may be at the heart, and in fact it may be the 800 pound gorilla in the living room of those who loved the GMIHC who are now hunkered down inside the wire in Prescott, and is what they are trying to hide behind their living room curtains. I hope they now realize that keeping this and other critical information they are withholding, is a futile effort to do what they believe is the right thing. I believe however, that this is flawed logic and they will ultimately be proven to be on the wrong side of history with their misguided efforts.

    * Eric Marsh knew the GMIHC was type 2 IA AT BEST, but if that fact were found out, it wouldn’t be good for the future of the crew and may cause the city council to accelerate their budget cutbacks for the Wildlands Division and the crew.

    * Very few people realize that Eric Marsh was never a hotshot before he became the GMIHC Crew Boss. Eric worked on an engine for the Tonto National Forest and he was just a pick up and fill in for the Globe Hotshots from the Tonto National Forest.

    * Eric Marsh was not qualified to be the GMIHC Superintendent when he was hired for that job. Just because he was in place as the Granite Mountain 7 fuels crew foreman, did not make him qualified to lead a Type 1 crew.

    * Other than that detail to the Globe Hotshots, Eric Marsh’s experience as a hotshot was limited to just filling in here and there as a digger (low ranking crew member). So when people say he was a hotshot for 20 years or whatever, it’s incorrect.

    * The only overhead position Eric Marsh ever did prior to being selected as the newly formed GMIHC Superintendent (Superintendent and Crew Boss is synonymous from the old days, but I prefer the title Crew Boss) was working as a “detail” squad leader for a summer with the Globe Hotshots. During this period and he was responsible for them getting kicked off the Clear Creek Fire in Idaho for using drugs (cannabis) and drinking alcohol on the fire line. This act also resulted the Globe Hotshots being disbanded early for that fire season by the USFS.

    Reply

    • MOAP Summary Part 2

      This last piece of information for me was in a word…shocking. In spite of my own personal knowledge that yes, hotshots in most respects are just like everybody else and especially a lot of young people. So knowing there is marijuana use associated with a hotshot crew does not shock me.

      In fact, if you were to tell me there was clandestine marijuana use on my crews, it would not surprise me. But at least if there were drug use within my crews, they had the respect for me and the good sense for their themselves to NEVER let me find out it was present, even when we were not on fires. And to use marijuana on fires, much less the fire line? May God forgive the man who did, because neither I, nor the USFS I knew and loved would have forgiven him (or her).

      And to now find out that Eric Marsh was in a leadership role on a hotshot crew as a POTHEAD, on fires, and especially the fire line…IS truly shocking to me. I have earned the right to call marijuana users potheads, because I spent 22 years as a soldier in this nation’s failed, disastrous, and often misguided War On Drugs (sorry about that, but it seemed like a good idea at the time). In my defense, it is where most of the FUNDING was at during that period of time in our nation’s history and well…government programs run on money.

      They say one photo is worth a thousand words, and so here are several to prove that I walked the walk in addition to talking the talk. http://ourfiregods.com/reserved2.html
      Or you can view all of my law enforcement which are primarily drug control work videos at where you will see that I have obviously had way too much time on my hands in retirement to because I even made these videos for fun and to pass the time (yes, I like the hits). https://www.youtube.com/user/DeadEndPSA

      In addition, I will admit, it was fun for me at times and working in special operations drug interdiction (all kinds), domestic eradication (cannabis) and disposal (methamphetamine) did replace the same organizational structure and brotherhood, not to mention the occasional adrenaline dumps with the corresponding highs, that a hotshot crew had done for me during the best (although the hardest) 10 years of my life. On the down side, I did risk my life and my families future dozens, if not hundreds of times in the furtherance of this endeavor, but that was a choice I made to get higher GS grades.

      Although now that I finally grown up for the most part (don’t ask my dear wife for her opinion, because she would give you a different answer) I actually want to advocate for the legalization of marijuana nationwide now under the slogan that I want to copyright, “Weed…it’s not as bad as alcohol…is it?” But still…a POTHEAD and alcohol on the fire line, come on Eric…really? I think this is one of answers I have been looking for since I first talked to John Dougherty almost 2 years ago.

      And FYI…we now have to ask ourselves, just how much did Willis own Marsh because as Sonny so eloquently put it, “But I believe Marsh had something from other higher commands that pressed him when he did not really want to be pressed. It seems like the chain of command thing here where the Stogie smoker tells the boy below to fetch coffee and if he doesn’t the boss gets a nasty face and that promotion from coffee boy to floor sweep and ten cent raise is likely to be out the window. Someone in command decided those men should be at that ranch instead of safe in the black. As Willis said that is what they do–they could not set still knowing Yarnell was about to burn in his opinion or was it more than just an opinion.” Which of course just one of the points I have been harping on since the first day.

      Eric Marsh was a 43 year old hotshot in the twilight of his hotshot career, who (there is no doubt in my mind) had already been blackballed and sent walking down the road kicking a can, even if unofficially, by the 800 pound silver back mountain gorilla in the wildland firefighting industry, the United States Forest Service. Which to put it mildly, would had made him damaged goods with limited options for a future in wildland firefighting and maybe other jobs depending on if he was actually fired or not. Eric Marsh had a skill set that would not have gotten him a cup of coffee in the private sector, I know that for a fact, because I had been in his same exact position once, except I was only 30.

      I believe human factors within the Prescott Fire Department are responsible for all of the causal factors in the deaths of the 19 wildland firefighters who were, the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew. And for that…I am truly sorry for those who loved them, because it would have been so much easier to blame the Yarnell Hill Fire, Roy Hall and his fire team, and the Arizona State Forestry Division, which is what I tried so hard to do for 18 months. I spent a lot of time building my resume on this thread so you would believe me. I was wrong…very wrong, sorry about that. So why should you believe me now…good question.

      As I said in an earlier posting, I feel like I can relate to Marsh because we both had our own demons to fight, which although that explains his actions on the Yarnell Hill Fire to me, it does not excuse his actions. However, I want to believe that if Eric were standing here in front of me right now, he would look down and say, just like he said to Steed, “I know…I’m sorry.”

      But because I can identify with him, I would reply, “Been there…done that, but the Valdez Fire and maybe a few other fires were more forgiving that the Yarnell Hill Fire.” We would then give each other an awkward man hug, laugh and go find a hole-in-the-wall taqueria and get some good Mexican food. We would tell stories and maybe a few lies about the last fire, the next tire, or some other fire until they closed the place.

      But then I always remember, forgiveness is not mine to give. That has to come from those who loved the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew, some probably have, for others, forgiveness may be a long in coming, but I hope it eventually does for everyone’s sake. But…I don’t think any of us should ever forget.

      Reply

      • And as a past Hot Shot We will always Remember The Crew.
        The Failures of the Leaders Or the Great accomplishments of
        The Leaders are Trivial compared to The Crew.

        The Unit called the GRANIT MOUNTAIN INTERANGECY HOT SHOTS I LIFT A DRINK AND A SALUTE TO YOU. Only Hot Shots will understand the crews that have been disbanded and the new crews that have been formed— to all as Hot Shots I say.
        HOT SHOTS ALWAYS/HOTSHOTS FOR EVER.

        REST IN PEACE– Granit Mountain– along with all the others who have died fighting Wild Land Fires.

        Well done Gary——-

        The Human Factors and the lack of following the 10 and 18 are stacking up .
        It is easer to fallow the 10 and 18 than to sift thru all the human factors that caused this tragedy there are so many little pieces of this puzzle that became to heavy to Carry and crashed in a fire called Yarnell Hill …….

        Reply

          • Gary—It is not easy at times to sit here and read the information the Facts and the possible problems when People /Hot Shots like you and me put such high standards on all hot shot crews. Then get blown out of the Saddle by this Fire.it dose reach your soul.—I had a hard time with the South Canyon Fire and knew 2 Smoke Jumpers personally that died there—but this fire is so much different in many ways.

            I wanted to add that I owe a huge gratitude to the Mendocino Hot Shots
            Knowing that I was a Hot Shot at one time and the belief that they felt there should be a marker at the site where my dad and 14 others perished the built a 8 foot tall cross painted it white and packed it into the middle of the location the 15 died on the Rattle Snake Fire and put it up with out the authorization of the Forest. No one knew they did it for severial years till the Memorial was built and that wood cross stayed until they recently replaced it with a big metal one. The 62 year anniversary is July 9 th.

            That’s why we call our selves Brothers, The Hot Shot Superintendent Walked with me into the site after the ceremony because he specifically asked the Ranger if he could, we had a good long talk and close fellow ship with each other.

            Reply

        • do not forget Gary…add us the hikers to your book so we get continued coverage of the label of us wanting that fifteen minutes of fame. Soft smiles.

          kidding. I am drained from the sun today. Don’t mind me.

          Always great reading…

          Reply

          • Telling the story of the Yarnell Hill Fire as seen as seen by the hikers is a goal of mine that is second only to writing about as many of the human factors as I can gather.

            We will leave the technical details of the fire to others, your story will tell everyone what it was like to witness that historic event first hand.

            Reply

      • Thanks Gary for your chapter and the information about Eric. We had parallels in mining–shift boss once that had done very little mining. Whew can they get some funny ideas when they lack experience. Fortunately miners won’t much listen to a green horn that thinks he has things by the tail.

        As far as weed smoking goes many of the miners in the Uranium mines were pot heads. They seemed to get their work done well enough but when one came down the drift driving a young buggy full of ore I would run to find a nitch so I might not get pinned against the wall and go home looking like a pan cake. Ha the one time I tried that shit when I was younger was when a friend insisted it was the thing to do. Well I shrunk to about 2 inches while driving and could not understand how I managed to see over the steering wheel. Needless to say it has been my last attempt to try that shit–who wants to walk around 2 inches high–you might get stepped on. But all that aside, consider the datura thing–there is plenty in the Weaver Mountains. I do know the Indians used it for visions on what to do. I however doubt the GMHS were inhaling it to make the ignorant mistake of dropping down into the bowl.

        My own take on drugs is to save the nation 20 billion or so by investing in trailer loads of various forms of dope out of other countries. Block off Dolan Springs, Arizona for a good area and open it up free to those that prefer to indulge in the clean variety of street drugs. Just keep a guard so dope only goes in and not out—let the rest of the population continue on the popular prescription drugs, You will see crime drop and prisons closing, Yes a lot of cops, parole officers, prison guards, etc. will be doing other jobs. The drug cartel will melt down since drugs are now free,. But the cops –drug cartellers–etc. will be able to retrain as counselors and rehabilitators, even undertakers for the new jobs that will appear. They won’t have to take up the hard work of things like Hot Shotting, mining or farm work. But the nation will actually benefit from the change.

        It seems to boil down to big money. When millions and billions are involved the system in place becomes a juggernaugjht that is almost impossible to stop. Will we see changes or will these deaths benefit the firemen who risk their lives on the front line. Sometimes I wonder who gives a shit for the 19 men considering that they were poorly trained mostly young people that were steered to their deaths
        All the hero rewards are deserving and deserving to all Hot Shot people dead or alive. But that does not answer why we see young men such as Donut saying that safety rules are hillbilly. That he could run by instinct and barely escape with his life tells me that he really did not have a clue when it came to staying alive in the manzanita overgrowth he was planted in. Someone else above him also did not know enough to get him into the black before things turned around as well.

        What is going on after all here? You know much better than I with your years of experience and sources. Hell, I can’t even find out what the other 8 per cent of the slurry consists of–a trade secret. It is no secret that 30,000 tons were dumped in the immediate vicinity of Yarnell. It is also no secret that the ammonium nitrate and phosphate produce NH3, gas coming off that slurry and NH3 will and does destroy lung tissue which does not regenerate. Add 2400 tons of a trade secreted chemical concoction, what does it do? You would think every fireman should have these facts — and Joy and I are talking to people that are like ourselves–suffering lung problems in a major. Add to that the fact that 50 people have perished since the fire and you would think the EPA or WHO would be investigating this like flies on dung.

        I have read your chapter and would be first to buy your book–the true account of how things are done and facts and influences that cause 19 young men to die.

        Reply

        • Well Sonny, it seems like you have the Drug War sized up, it was generally a big waste of money effort. Creating “Amsterdam” zones is certainly an interesting idea. I never thought about weed being in underground mines, sounds dangerous.

          And before this incident, probably most people did not realize how little money and time is invested in training even “elite” hotshots. Very few hotshots ever get more than the 40 hours of basic training and then it has to come from on-the-job-training, which can be deadly.

          Reply

          • As far as my book goes, if I ever get it published, I will bring signed copies to you and Joy. If I have to go with self publishing, I don’t know what I will do? Send you a link for a free download I guess?

            Reply

      • Gary, thank you for this. And for your honesty.

        And, to be honest, as you know, I think the “pot-smoking” thing is really troubling.

        As you know, I have a lot of experience with pot. But I never considered myself a “pot-head.”

        I was extremely careful about when, and when not, I used it. Because it really did alter my perceptions about time, distance, and a whole lot of other things.

        But it has been the best thing ever for my neuropathy, and also, for playing around with photographs. And also getting out of my left-brain what that’s what I needed.

        But I seriously can’t even REMOTELY imagine using it while on a fire.

        On the other hand, that history is not conclusive evidence that that was what was going on in 2013.

        So that’s my sense of conflict here.

        Reply

        • No, I never intended to suggest that anyone on the GMIHC was using either weed or alchohol on the Yarnell Hill Fire. I just think that Eric’s past history had to do with how much Willis and the PFD owned him because I think he had very limited options.

          BUT…I also think it demonstrates what an epic fail it was for the Yavapai County Sherriff’s Department not to do a standard death investigation for Yavapai County residents who died in Yavapai County and instead left it to clueless wildland firefighting experts. Toxicology tests should have been done to close that loop. The truth is…now we will never know for sure, we can only guess.

          Reply

          • >> Gary Olson wrote…
            >>
            >> Toxicology tests should have been done to close that loop.
            >> The truth is…now we will never know for sure, we can only guess.

            Toxicology tests WERE done.

            It’s just that very few people have been allowed to SEE those results.

            The Associated Press
            Burns, breathing issues killed firefighters
            Result of autopsies, done Tuesday, won’t be released for another three months
            By FELICIA FONSECA and AMANDA LEE MYERS of the Associated Press
            http://durangoherald.com/article/20130704/NEWS02/130709768/Burns-breathing-issues-killed-firefighters-
            ———————————————-
            PRESCOTT, Ariz. – The 19 firefighters killed during last weekend in an Arizona blaze died of burns and inhalation problems, according to initial autopsy findings released Thursday.

            Cari Gerchick, a spokeswoman for the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office in Phoenix, said the hot shots died from burns, carbon-monoxide poisoning or oxygen deprivation, or a combination of the factors. The autopsies were performed Tuesday, but more detailed autopsy reports should be released in three months, pending lab work.

            “Our work is not done,” Gerchick told The Associated Press. “But what we are glad about is that we can release these fallen heroes to their families for burial, and that grieving process can continue.”
            ———————————————-

            It is not possible to say that someone has died from carbon monoxide poisoning and/or oxygen deprivation WITHOUT having done standard toxicology tests.

            Very few people have also ever seen those FINAL results… which were dependent on ‘other lab results’ versus even the preliminary stuff that WAS done.

            That’s what ‘pending lab work’ means.

            Testing blood and tissue samples.

            There have always been indications that the ADOSH investigators WERE privy to the results of these autopsy reports… but it appears it was only during some face-to-face meetings with the Medical Examiners.

            In other words… ADOSH never received actual copies of the reports or else they would have been subject, themselves, to having to release them to various Arizona Open Records requests.

            We can only ASSUME that if ADOSH found ( or saw ) ANY evidence of ‘intoxication’, especially on the part of the employees who were considered to be the LEADERS of the others…

            …that some mention of this would have been made in their own final report.

            But that’s just an assumption.

            The only thing that will erase all ‘assumptions’ is to see the ACTUAL toxicology reports, once and for all.

            Bottom line: It would have been gross negligence on the part of these Medical Examiners to have NOT done basic toxicology testing when they have 19 bodies coming from one single incident.

            And I don’t mean just “Ooops… ya shoulda done that” slap on the wrist kinda negligence.

            That would have been “You’re fired” kinda negligence.

            Reply

            • Followup to above…

              Regardless of whether or not investigators for BOTH Arizona Forestry’s Special Accident Investigation Team OR Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Heath ever saw and/or received copies of all the autopsy and toxicology results that were available…

              You can rest assured the attorneys for the plaintiffs in the duly-filed “wrongful death” lawsuits have seen them and/or have their own copies.

              Arizona CANNOT claim an ‘Open Records’ exemption in the case where a duly registered attorney for a plaintiff in a ‘wrongful death’ suit has requested to see ALL available autopsy and toxicology results.

              The whole ‘Open Records’ thing ONLY applies to “the public’s right to know”.

              To deny those results to an attorney of record in an actual ‘wrongful death’ proceeding with a valid court calendar would be the equivalent of also trying deny an attorney representing a client accused of a crime from seeing the arrest report on file for his/her client.

              If none of what I’m saying now is true… and a Medical Examiner is claiming deaths from combinations of carbon monoxide poisoning and/or oxygen deprivation… yet no ‘toxicology’ reports exist…

              …then I would seriously start to doubt what planet this is.

              Reply

            • Good info, but from watching television programs is seems to me that they miss all kinds of things they are not looking for when it comes to toxicology test, so I guess I would have to know a lot more about it and exactly what they did in order to give an opinion.

              But I do know that if a school bus driver would have driven a school bus with 18 kids on board off a steep embankment down by Yarnell Hill and killed all of them, the Yavapai County Sheriffs Office would have done competent death investigations (I hope) and the first thing on their list would have been to check the person in charge, the driver, for alcohol or drug use and the public would have known the results ASAP.

              If I had the skill to write a book about just the fuck ups with the investigations of the Yarnell Hill Fire it would be the size of an Encyclopedia Britannica S volume by the time I got done.

              There doesn’t seem to any end to this shit.

              Reply

              • From the Horse’s mouth.

                This is sitting on the FAQ page at the actual Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s own website.

                ( The Granite Mountain Hotshot bodies were taken to the Maricopa County Medical Examiner, not Yavapai ).

                http://www.maricopa.gov/medex/faq.aspx

                ——————————————————-
                What do Medical Examiners do?

                Medical Examiners perform postmortem examinations on decedents. They review medical records and investigator reports. They examine glass slides of tissue samples under a microscope to identify diseases or anomalies. They review toxicology reports for evidence of chemical abnormalities or drug use or abuse. They dictate a report of findings as to the cause and manner of death. They meet with law enforcement officers, attorneys and family members to explain my findings. They appear in court to testify as an expert witness.
                —————————————————–

                As the FAQ blurb above indicates… it is STANDARD PROCEDURE to do ‘drug testing’ on any body that comes in the door.

                Reply

                • Notice the last part of their own FAQ.

                  “They appear in court to testify as an expert witness.”

                  If the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits proceed to trial… guess who gets to sit on the witness stand and say exactly WHAT they did ( or didn’t do )… or who may have even TOLD them NOT to do some things they normally do?

                  Reply

        • Although I was so surprised by your question or comment, I wasn’t able to process what you said until now, and I’m still not sure I get what you are trying to say?

          I think you and I really might live on different planets. I think I detect the theme that although he may have been a pothead, what’s the problem?We don’t have any evidence he was smoking pot that morning? Really?

          I don’t really know where to start. How about starting with getting kicked off a fire for drinking and using pot on a fire line or anywhere on the job where you are getting paid to do dangerous work. The saw teams were smoking pot and drinking with Marsh for God’s sake!

          No offense Marti…but you are a POTHEAD by anyone’s definition except for another pothead…don’t you know that? I still like you and respect you, but you are a pothead…because you say you use pot on a regular basis. What is your definition of a pothead anyway? Mine is somebody that uses pot on a regular basis.

          Pot is illegal to use or posses in Arizona…and Idaho, except for special circumstances in Arizona. Was Marsh and the other Globe Hotshots treating their glaucoma or seizure disorders on the fire line? What are we talking bout here, I am confused? The prisons are full of people, mostly men of color, who are there because they did even less that Eric Marsh did and he did it ON A FIRELINE as a hotshot supervisor.

          I’m sorry, but that is a game changer for me. That is not a kid making a mistake behind the dumpsters after class. This is a grown up man, and older man, who was in a leadership role on a Type I crew on a FIRELINE using mind altering substances which physically impact your motor skills and judgment…right? You can’t be serious, you are going to split hairs, “Well, was he using it that morning?”

          That behavior form Eric Marsh on the Clear Creek Fire was such an extreme example of extremely poor judgment and I don’t think there is any way that the first time he got caught, was the first time he did it.

          Eric Marsh’s actions on the Clear Creek Fire disqualified him in my opinion, to ever be in a position of leadership with young firefighters again or any firefighters for that matter, in his life. What about that don’t you understand?

          I don’t really know what to say. I feel like I am trying to explain to somebody why it is important for the sun to come up tomorrow morning…it’s important because it’s important, what else can I say?

          Oh, and one more thing, it is common for alcoholics to turn to marijuana use to help them stop drinking.

          Reply

          • Oh…and one more thing. I am so over protecting the reputation of Eric Marsh and the memory of the GMIHC, I am going to print everything I can verify they did wrong on that fire or in the past.

            And for all of you wildland firefighter supervisors out there in cyber world, if you don’t want the same thing done to you, don’t kill your crew by being stupid.

            And I will tell you one more thing for a fact that you really should pay attention to, if the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshots would have been a federal crew and I would have been assigned to do the investigation and if Eric Marsh and Jesse Steed would have survived, I would have recommended to the United States Attorney in the strongest possible terms that they should both be prosecuted federally for some form of second degree murder…manslaughter. So…just FYI.

            Eric Marsh and Jesse Steed caused the deaths of 17 Granite Mountain Hotshots through their extreme negligence that no reasonable person to date has been able to understand or justify except for the SAIT and they just said, “Well gosh, they thought they could make it duhhhhhh,”

            Fucking amateurs!

            Gee…maybe I am still a little mad about the deaths of the GMIHC?

            Reply

            • And FYI, the former hotshot crew boss in me wants to forgive Eric Marsh, the former criminal investigator in me knows that I have a responsibility to the families of the dead to see they get justice and so in the end, the 2 parts of me would come together and forgive Eric Marsh after he had been punished to the fullest extent of the law as determined by federal sentencing guidelines.

              If my son would have been killed on the Yarnell Hill Fire, I would want to forgive, but forgiving doesn’t mean giving someone a get out jail card free card just because you like them or can identify with them. It is was is known as making the tough calls for the right reasons, in spite of your personal feelings.

              Reply

              • and that is what professionals get paid to do, that is how I know the members of the SAIT were fucking amateurs.

                Reply

                • True and Right on—That is what use to happen in investigations This one went south with no one at fault
                  The Feds would never have hired Marsh after the Glob incident
                  But if it was not an official investigation then Prescott City may have hired him based on no official evidence on Drug use. Most City Governments do random drug tests and require a drug test before hiring.

                  Using Drugs and Alcohol on duty is normally a automatic Firing or dismissal.
                  Need More info on the Glob HS Crew incident.

                  Reply

                  • Before any body goes ballistic here just remember both Gary and I are EX Law Enforcement we have a completely different view on Drug use than the Normal Citizen. If its against the Law its against the Law. Even in States that have approved its use it is against Federal Law. And it is against the law to be working or Driving and using Drugs even in States that have approved its use.

                    Reply

                    • And I totally understand that.

                      Even tho, as Gary has said, to a certain extent, we DO live, maybe not on different planets, but different “neighborhoods,” so to speak.

                      Not being a Law Enforcement Officer, I think about this stuff differently.

                      HOWEVER, that being said, I TOTALLY understand the SAFETY and RESPONSIBILITY and, even LEGAL stuff.

                      Because I DO have experience in that “neighborhood,” also.

          • Gary~

            Yikes. I didn’t even come across this whole long thread because after I wrote what I wrote:

            “But I seriously can’t even REMOTELY imagine using it while on a fire.

            On the other hand, that history is not conclusive evidence that that was what was going on in 2013.

            So that’s my sense of conflict here.”………

            ………I then turned my attention back to the dozer, Cory, dozer operator, Cordes, Musser puzzle and that took all I had for a night and a day so I wasn’t following this whole thing.

            So I didn’t respond or clarify.

            What you said here:

            “Although I was so surprised by your question or comment, I wasn’t able to process what you said until now, and I’m still not sure I get what you are trying to say?”

            ………is I think, the explanation. I wasn’t even remotely assuming what you thought I was, and what you said I was.

            I was just asking to clarify if you thought (or had any information) that Eric and the other 19 were STILL using pot or alcohol on any fires into 2013.

            But I guess I was too vague and that led to a miscommunication on my part.

            I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten my answer.

            But I think you have a VERY inaccurate picture of me.

            But, regardless, for me, this isn’t about me. So you can think whatever you want to about me and label me however you want to.

            I don’t like that, but both of us have too many other bigger fishies to fry to waste our time entangled in this.

            And BTW, I appreciate your characterization of the SAIT as a bunch of amateurs. I’m a total amateur, also, but at least I’m honest.

            And I TOTALLY agree with your description of the SERIOUSNESS of this pot thing and what it meant. And I appreciate your description of the consequences of that for Eric, and how it made him more of a Tool in the palm of Darrell Willis (with all THAT implied on this fire) than a true IHC Superintendent.

            Namaste!

            Reply

  99. YIKES!!!!

    Trying to go to bed and, thus, to sleep and we are having a HUMONGOUS electrical storm right now here in Albuquerque, in this middle of the night, the likes of which I have never never never EVER EVER experienced before.

    Reply

      • Marti–as a kid living in the Burro Mountains I enjoyed many of those ligtening storms you are experiencing. It seemed to be a magnet for them in that area during monsoon season. They were bad at starting fires as well–some we had to put out ourselves to keep our camp from burning.

        Global warming –yes. That radiation and heat from the sun is different now. The ozone layer is depleted–jet fuel burning and whatever they dump in the atmosphere is eating up the O3 so filtering is less and cancers are up. Too much screwing around with Mother Nature I think.

        Reply

        • Thanks for this, Sonny!

          I guess what blew my mind was having that happen in Albuquerque in the middle of the night. In early June. We’re not even remotely “into” the “monsoon season,” yet.

          We’re still in what, normally, would be the very very very dry June period “leading up to” the, hopefully, thunderstorm-full monsoon season.

          I know Arizona hasn’t had the same kind of humidity/precipitation/rainfall weather that New Mexico has had. And after reading around a bit, I’m starting to understand why.

          It’s this partially active/partially not there yet El Nino. I’ve never really tried to understand the whole El Nino/La Nina thing, but I’m definitely trying to learn more about it now.

          That’s why Joy can agonize about how hot it is around Yarnell/Congress, and Arizona has already had wildfires while I only turned off my furnace a week ago.

          I really wish I could send just a fraction of the weather we are having here back to Arizona.

          Instead, it multiplies and proceeds to Texas and produces all kinds of havoc there.

          Climate. Weather. Wildfire. It’s all related.

          Reply

  100. **
    ** THE SHORT ROCK WALL ( ON SHRINE ROAD )… AND DRIP TORCHES??

    Reply to Sonny post on June 12, 2015 at 10:53 am

    >> Sonny said…
    >>
    >> Joy backs up my memory of those firefighters using drip torches right there above
    >> that short rock wall in the video that has been deleted from U-tube.

    Sonny… my apologies for all the initial confusion about the location of this “short rock wall” that you have been talking about.

    Again… you are RIGHT. It is NOT that ‘rock wall’ that can be seen there just to the EAST of the Shrine of St. Joseph in Aaron Hulburd’s M2U00266R video.

    What I didn’t realize is that you are talking about a ‘short rock wall’ that is apparently BEYOND the point where the Shrine Road PAVEMENT ends.

    That would by why I couldn’t find a match for those photographs you sent.

    All I have to work with in a case like this is Google Earth and Google Maps with Street View.

    Google Maps Street View(s) always END when PAVEMENT ends.

    It has long been a standing policy of Google to never go “off pavement” with their ‘Street View’ cameras.

    Looking again at the photos you sent and relying solely on Google Earth Satellite imagery… I believe I DO see this exact ‘short rock wall’ as it appears in the photos you sent.

    It seems to be exactly here… a bit WEST on Shrine Road after the point where the pavement ends there at the end of the St. Joseph Shrine parking lot…

    34.228105, -112.753683

    So now I have a question for you about all this.

    Is this really where you are saying you saw “People with drip torches” in that video?

    I still have no recollection of this VIDEO ( showing burnouts ) that was once supposedly available on YouTube but then withdrawn… but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.

    However… if we have now ‘zeroed in’ on the LOCATION where you believe this video was shot ( thanks to the extra effort you made to get me those photos )…

    …I have to say that I still believe it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY this ‘short rock wall’ location was ever the site of any ‘manual burnouts’ that day.

    The location appears to be basically right about near that ‘bend in the road’ on Shrine Road where we see all those vehicles come flying out from the Youth Camp… including that Peeples Valley Water Tender that led to the infamous “Slow Down, Skippy!” remark from Prescott National Forest employee and off-the-radar hire KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell.

    There is NO FLAME there in that ‘bend in the road’ while those vehicles were all evacuating from the Youth Camp out there at the END of Shrine Road… either near the rock wall or ‘above’ it.

    Have you been able to recall what MONTH it was when you first saw this video supposedly showing “drip torches” being used in this ‘short rock wall’ location?

    Do you recall if it was it BEFORE or AFTER the SAIR report came out?

    Reply

    • Yes there are two rock walls past the pavement and just west of the Shrine. The first is about 3 or 4 feet in height and the second is maybe 2 feet in height and they look alike so the same guys made them. Yes I am saying there were men lighting brush and I verified that memory of the video with joy

      Reply

      • Thank you, Sonny.

        So we are ‘on the same page’ now… thanks to those other photos you and Joy were kind enough to send along.

        Unfortunately… I still can’t recall seeing this video that would have showed those men using those drip torches in that location… and I have searched for a copy of it out on the ‘Interweb’… but no luck so far.

        I have even done an extensive search of what are called “Wayback’ machines. Those are public websites that are nothing but massive storage shapshots of the way websites USED to look at various times in the past… including copies of things that were on the pages.

        No luck there, either.

        So maybe this video will surface or maybe the original poster will put it back online.

        Reply

  101. So. I just wrote a series of thoughts way way downstream having to do with our missing:

    Dozer
    Dozer boss
    Justin

    And, sometimes missing, Cory Ball, who is associated with the three above.

    It’s really a PITA to copy and past all of what I wrote way downstream about this.

    But it’s not a PITA to post the link to the top of that “internal conversation.”

    So, if you are interested in the above (which I KNOW WTKTT and Calvin are) here’s the link to my downstream musings, which includes a never-before-seen-by-us photograph of both Gary Cordes’ truck and, I think, Cory Ball, and some other fire-fighters on the side of HWY 89 at about the time Gary Cordes assigned Cory Ball to go on a mission (with whomever and to whomever) to scout the possibility of putting a Dozer line from Glen Ilah to the Southwest to protect Yarnell

    http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xv/#comment-299264

    Reply

    • And, now that I’m seeing what WTKTT is writing just below this, I’m thinking we may have to do a bit of re-juggling.

      Reply

        • And YIKES I’m seeing that this is getting very very very much more COMPLICATED.

          Way more complicated than my increasingly braindead by lateness of night brain may be capable of dealing with.

          So if I don’t deal with it until tomorrow morning, please excuse me.

          Reply

          • I think, all things considered, it’s going to take some more looking into and thinking about this whole thing.

            Reply

            • Thanks for all of this, Marti… and sorry about the ‘cross posting’.

              All I was really saying down below is that I DO remember this important photo… and while I still BELIEVE that was actually taken at the RHR and sometime AFTER the fire had moved through most of the Glen Ilah subdivision…

              …I have never been SURE about that.

              The bit of SIGNAGE that is visible on the left frame APPEARS to be associated with the RHR and the road signage on the right frame also APPEARS to match that stuff around the point where Lakewood meets Manzanita…

              …but we really never did finish analyzing this photo.

              One of the mysteries with this photo is that given the action in the photo and the proximity of the camera to the other FFs… you can be pretty sure this was taken by another FF.

              At that point… I don’t think the FFs were even LETTING anyone from the media get this close to them for any reason.

              So that means this photo was most likely taken by one of the FFs actually participating in that get-together there.

              So how did this TV station end up with this FFs photo ( and no others like it? )… and why didn’t this photo ever get submitted to the SAIT or to ADOSH?

              Ya gotta wonder.

              More about this photo later… but YES.. that very well COULD be Cory Ball there. I can’t think of ANY other Blue Ridge Hothshot that it might have been given the time and the circumstances.

              Reply

              • Thanks for this, WTKTT.

                I had just really not EVER seen this before, so still integrating it.

                And Joy just sent me the other photos.

                And, so, tomorrow, when I’m a bit more coherent, I will re-cogitate all of them.

                PS In spite of what ever conflicts you and Gary may have……………..

                I still think both of you are awesome and I REALLY appreciate both of your contributions to this conversation.

                Reply

                • Photo 097 is the one that shows the Blue Ridge Hotshot Helmet in the very bottom edge of the photo.

                  I am still putting a time of 4:15 PM on this photo… which creates kind of head-scratcher in this on-going ( but still all-important ) story of “Cory Ball and the emergency dozer line”.

                  Even if you push the time for this photo plus or minus 5 minutes… that Blue Ridge Hotshot Helmet seen there standing in the road where Lakewood meets Fountainhill pretty much HAS to be Cory Ball.

                  AFAWK there is NO OTHER Blue Ridge Hotshot that could have possibly been beneath that helmet, at that time, in that place, other than Cory Ball.

                  More later.

                  Reply

            • Reply to Marti Reed post on June 12, 2015 at 8:28 pm

              >> Marti said…
              >>
              >> I think, all things considered, it’s going to take some more
              >> looking into and thinking about this whole thing.

              Copy that… and when it gets more like a USENET CHAT ROOM than a FORUM around here… it’s best to let things quiet down some.

              The “Elephant in the Room” right now is also the fact that there is still basically TOTAL RADIO SILENCE regarding this last cancelled Brendan McDonough deposition.

              All of a sudden… that’s going to POP again.

              It’s just ‘backburning’ waiting for someone to open a door or window and add a little oxygen to the heat.

              The SILENCE is ( at the moment ) DEAFENING.

              Reply

  102. **
    ** THE BLUE TWO STORY HOUSE IN GLEN ILAH
    **
    ** BLUE RIDGE HOTSHOT ( BALL? ) STANDING AT FOUNTAINHILL AND LAKEWOOD

    Joy… check your GMAIL box.

    I have found the location of those 3 photos you just sent me.

    Those would be…

    085.jpg, 089.jpg and 097.jpg

    The person who took these 3 photographs was standing right here…

    34.215038, -112.757298

    That’s a spot in the driveway of a house on Lakewood Drive a few hundred feet EAST of where Fountainhill Road intersects with Lakewood Drive.

    Call it 23076 Lakewood Drive.

    The EXIT datestamps for these 3 photos are…

    085.jpg – Date/Time Original: 2013-06-30 22:10:12
    089.jpg – Date/Time Original: 2013-06-30 22:17:34 ( +7:22 )
    097.jpg – Date/Time Original: 2013-06-30 22:47:27 ( +29:53 )

    The base HOUR of 2200 ( 10:00 PM ) cannot be correct, but if the clock was working correctly but the TIME was simply set wrong then 089 was taken 7 minutes and 22 seconds after photo 085 and then 097 was taken another 29 minues and 53 seconds ( almost exactly one-half hour ) after photo 089.

    If these are still the original camera filenames then obviously there were THREE other photos taken between 085 and 089 and then another SEVEN photos taken between 089 and 097.

    The VIEW in all 3 photos is directly to the NORTHWEST.

    In photos 085 and 089 the fire is actually still some distance away and I would say the actual time was on or about the time that Brendan McDonough was having his life saved by Blue Ridge Hotshot Brian Frisby and his Polaris Ranger UTV. ( circa 3:45 PM ).

    Photo 097 ( taken a half-hour after 089 ) shown a DRAMATIC increase in the size of the smoke plume and a signficant advance to the SOUTH of where it was before… and the EAST half of the plume is now coming right at the camera.

    I would say image 097 has to be a pretty good view of what that smoke plume looked like right around about 4:15 PM and just before the Granite Mountain Hotshots were about to decide to drop into the fuel-filled box canyon.

    The blue two-story house in the background in all 3 photos, across that intersection was destroyed in the fire.

    The ‘portrait’ oriented photo 097.jpg is the interesting one that *appears* to have captured a Blue Ridge Hotshot standing in the road between the camera and the two-story house in the background.

    He is standing in the middle of Lakewood Drive, about right in front of that ‘white picket fence’ enclosure there just to west of the house where this photo was taken.

    Unfortunately… the camera was ‘raised’ to capture the enormous height of the smoke plume seen off to the northwest and ONLY the very TOP of this firefigher’s BLUE Helmet can be seen.

    There is a LOGO on the side of the helmet and photo enhancement proves ( without a doubt ) it is, in fact, the logo of the Blue Ridge Hotshots.

    As far as we know… the only Blue Ridge Hothshot who could have been in that part of Glen Ilah around that time ( 4:15 to 4:20 PM ) would have been Cory Ball trying to get back out to the west of Glen Ilah to do that ’emergency dozer line’ scouting that SPGS1 Gary Cordes had instructed him to do at that late point in the afternoon.

    Was there anything else you wanted to know about these 3 photos?

    FWIW… I don’t believe these photos are showing anything even remotely related to any possible ‘manual burnouts’ out in that northwest direction.

    They appear to be capturing the fire and the smoke plume in the later afternoon bearing down on Glen Ilah exactly as other photos do… but simply from a perspective there where Fountainhill meets Lakewood.

    Reply

    • My cell battery is too low to be on I’m
      will check. email
      blue house- belonged to Yarnell fire board member annd does not comprehend setting aan example on defensible space with new home grassy yard layout and the actual photo is taken from Chase’s property

      Reply

      • Thank you, Joy.

        Those really are fairly important photos, and proving once again that NO PHOTO is insignificant. You never know when one of them might have some small detail that adds yet another ‘piece of the puzzle’.

        That 097.jpg photo showing that Blue Ridge Hotshot standing there at the intersection of Fountainhill and Lakewood might be very important in the long run.

        That pretty much HAS to be the elusive Mr. Cory Ball… but his presence in that place at that time both answers some questions AND (perhaps) raises some new ones.

        This whole story about SPGS1 Gary Cordes instructing Blue Ridge Hotshot Cory Ball to go “scout more dozer line” to protect Glen Ilah has still yet to be told… and it still MAY have a lot to do with what happened to Granite Mountain.

        More later.

        Reply

    • So I just wrote up my morning (with coffee and huevos rancheros) musings regarding Cory, the dozer, Paul, Justin, Cordes, the blue house, and the photo(s), downstream in the weeds (on purpose), so if you want to read what I pieced together,

      ……..it’s here:

      http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xv/#comment-299333

      I’m thinking this is still enough of a confusing and messy little rabbit-hole that, until we’re more on the same page, we might prefer to keep it down in its little cave.

      Reply

  103. **
    ** THE ROCK WALL ( CONTINUED )

    Reply to Sonny post on June 12, 2015 at 10:53 am

    >> Sonny said…
    >>
    >> Joy backs up my memory of those firefighters using drip torches right there above
    >> that short rock wall in the video that has been deleted from U-tube.

    Sonny…

    Check your GMAIL account.

    I have ‘replied’ to that message that had those THREE photographs you took of this ‘rock wall’ that you are talking about.

    I have looked all up and down ‘Shrine Road’ via Google Maps Street View and I can find NO MATCH for this rock wall seen in the three photographs you sent.

    You are still right… this is NOT the ‘rock wall’ that is seen out there on Shrine Road just before you reach the St. Joseph Shrine parking lot and as seen in Aaron Hulburd’s M2U00266R video.

    This ‘rock wall’ you have photographed is ‘different’ from that one… but I am unable to locate it anywhere there on ‘Shrine Road’.

    WHERE, exactly, did you take these three photographs of THIS ‘rock wall’?

    What ROAD were you on?

    If you can specifically describe where THIS rock wall is… I can probably still GEO-TAG the photos.

    Also… just to be clear… is THIS rock wall that YOU have now photographed really where you say you saw the men with drip-torches?

    Reply

    • Followup…

      Sonny… my apologies for all the initial confusion about the location of this “short rock wall” that you have been talking about.

      Again… you are RIGHT. It is NOT that ‘rock wall’ that can be seen there just to the EAST of the Shrine of St. Joseph in Aaron Hulburd’s M2U00266R video.

      What I didn’t realize is that you are talking about a ‘short rock wall’ that is apparently BEYOND the point where the Shrine Road PAVEMENT ends.

      That would by why I couldn’t find a match for those photographs you sent.

      All I have to work with in a case like this is Google Earth and Google Maps with Street View.

      Google Maps Street View(s) always END when PAVEMENT ends.

      It has long been a standing policy of Google to never go “off pavement” with their ‘Street View’ cameras.

      Looking again at the photos you sent and relying solely on Google Earth Satellite imagery… I believe I DO see this exact ‘short rock wall’ as it appears in the photos you sent.

      It seems to be exactly here… a bit WEST on Shrine Road after the point where the pavement ends there at the end of the St. Joseph Shrine parking lot…

      34.228105, -112.753683

      So now I have a question for you about all this.

      Is this really where you are saying you saw “People with drip torches” in that video?

      I still have no recollection of this VIDEO ( showing burnouts ) that was once supposedly available on YouTube but then withdrawn… but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.

      However… if we have now ‘zeroed in’ on the LOCATION where you believe this video was shot ( thanks to the extra effort you made to get me those photos )…

      …I have to say that I still believe it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY this ‘short rock wall’ location was ever the site of any ‘manual burnouts’ that day.

      This is basically right about near that ‘bend in the road’ on Shrine Road where we see all those vehicles come flying out from the Youth Camp… including that Peeples Valley Water Tender that led to the infamous “Slow Down, Skippy!” remark from Prescott National Forest employee KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell.

      There is NO FLAME there in that ‘bend in the road’ while those vehicles were all evacuating from the Youth Camp out there at the END of Shrine Road.

      Have you been able to recall what MONTH it was when you first saw this video with “drip torches” being used?

      Reply

      • Joy showed me the video but that had to be a year or longer ago. We reviewed that photo because we were interested in seeing Mark Danielson’s pickup that was in the video, Joy was working with cold case cop Paul Chastain. She shared the video with him since the Danielson case might have been a homicide. We will see if that might be an avenue to find out where the video is. That was a strange disappearance of Mark — some have insinuated that Mark was actually murdered instead of a suicide disappearance into the boulders or wherever his body might be. I had heard a single gunshot from the boulder area behind U Stow It when we were living there and later wondered if that man might be in that area, but it is private and hard to access—we did once at night and nearly got arrested for trespassing–we had lost our bearing in the dark.

        At any rate we hope to find that video again and maybe some more we can share with you, Marti, Gary, Bob et. al. Maybe we will take a run to Yarnell tonight–I am a bit hungry for a meal and Aguila is hot and no restaurant. The American Legion likely has a meal tonight and a lady there is a good source of photos.

        Reply

        • Sonny says

          June 13, 2015 at 2:39 pm
          we did once at night and nearly got arrested for trespassing

          incorrect Sonny…it was not at night. I have the photos posted on google +.
          It was wee morning still dark and accidentally due to darkness met up with Iceforest’s dogs…and no I am not going to Yarnell tonight Sonny…Carlo’s steak soon. Let us find a dvd first…

          Reply

  104. **
    ** ARIZONA FORESTRY BULLDOZER WORK ORDER SAYS THE DOZER OPERATOR
    ** ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE YARNELL FIRE WAS NAMED “PAUL MORIN”

    Reply to Sonny post ( yesterday) June 11, 2015 at 2:47 pm

    >> Sonny said…
    >>
    >> WTKTT that is not the video–the video I am referring to had a rock wall to
    >> the left albeit only 2-3 ft high and as I remember Shrine area that wall is
    >> still there. I will go get a pic since I need to go get my mail and Harley
    >> at Yarnell, maybe today. Joy sent you some photos of separated smoke
    >> stacks time at about 310 pm –will be nice to pinpoint those. There was a
    >> photo of two distinct smoke stacks separated in another photo as well. Joy
    >> is trying to remember where we saw that and I think we might have given
    >> a copy of that to Dr. Putnam. We want to get those photos again to see if
    >> we can verify location of the stack separation and time involved there.

    Thank you, Sonny.

    I have received all the photographs and I’m looking at them right now.

    Give me just a short amount of time and I’ll have all the GPS locations figured out and we’ll continue this story of a possible “Shrine Road Burnout”.

    Those are amazing photographs. We’ll get this figured out, I assure you.

    >> Sonny also said…
    >>
    >> Next, Kathy Hunter Glover had her Dad’s house backed into by the dozer.
    >> This house lies right on the edge of the north side of Glen Ilah. Now by
    >> the FOIA Joy brought up three dozer operators, two on 6-30-13. They are
    >> Paul Morin, D7R dozer worked 7-2100 and William May of May Machineruy
    >> on D5HXL doing what is called a Mob In from 1410-2300. Locations of work
    >> is not listed. Donald Rezzonico worked 7-1-13 from 00-1300 as a dozer
    >> operator, likely that road into the site?

    Thank you for those FOIA obtained Yarnell Hill Bulldozer TIME SHEETS obtained
    from Carrie Dennet at Arizona Forestry.

    Here is the information on those PUBLIC documents that have ALWAYS been in the possession of Arizona Forestry but are only now seeing the light of day.

    Dozer operator “Paul Morin” took the first shift on that Yavapai County Dozer, and appears to be one who was listed as “missing” later in the day and being actively searched for by the DPS Police Officers in the Ranger 58 Helicopter.

    Dozer operator “Donald Rezzonico” then does appear to have “taken over” the operation of this Yavapai County dozer from “Paul Morin” right around midnight on the day of the tragedy and was then the one putting in that ‘dozer push’ out to the deployment site in the wee hours of the morning.

    ** Yarnell Fire AZF Bulldozer Equipment Ticket 1

    This is the first ticket for the Yavapai County bulldozer that first showed up at the Yarnell Hill Fire on Sunday morning, June 30, 2013, and was being used all day there on the south side of the fire.

    The ‘Operator’ that came with the dozer who was NOT red-carded and had no radio with him appears to have been someone named “Paul Morin”.

    This is the dozer ( and operator ) that would then be reported as “missing” following the deployment radio traffic and DPS Ranger 58 helicopter was being told to look for this “missing” dozer operator along with the “missing” Granite Mountain crew.

    ———————————————————–
    EMERGENCY EQUIPMENT SHIFT TICKET
    NOTE: The responsible Government Officer will update this form
    each day or shift and make initial and final equipment inspections.

    ( Initials in top right corner appear to be “Elle” )

    1. AGREEMENT NUMBER: AZ-A1S-130688 ( Yarnell Hill Fire )
    2: CONTRACTOR (name): Yavapai County
    3. INCIDENT OR PROJECT NAME: Yarnell Hill
    4. INCIDENT NUMBER: ( Blank )
    5. OPERATOR (name): Palu Morin
    6. EQUIPMENT MAKE: Cat
    7. EQUIPMENT MODEL: D7R
    8: OPERATOR FURNISHED BY: ( X ) Contractor – (__) Government
    9. SERIAL NUMBER: 06562
    10. LICENSE NUMBER: ( Blank )
    11. OPERATING SUPPLIES FURNISHED BY: ( X ) Contractor (wet) – (__) Government (dry)
    12. DATE MO/DAY/YR: 6-30-13
    13. EQUIPMENT USE
    START: 0700 ( Original entry of 0600 was scratched out )
    STOP: 2100 ( Original entry of 2050 was scratchd out )
    HOURS/DAYS/MILES (circle one): WORK: 14
    SPECIAL: ( Appears to contain the initial “CV” )
    14. REMARKS ( released, down time and cause, problems, etc. ): ( Blank )
    15. EQUIPMENT STATUS
    ( X ) a. Inspected under agreement
    (__) b. Released by Government
    (__) c. Withdrawn by Contractor
    16. INVOICE POSTED BY ( Recorder’s Initials ): “LA” 7/2/13
    17. CONTRACTOR’S OR AUTHORIZED AGENT’S SIGNATURE
    ( Signature looks someting like “D W Peela” ?? )
    18. GOVERMENT OFFICER’S SIGNATURE: ( Not legible? )
    19. DATE SIGNED: 6/30/13

    NSN 7840-01-119-5825
    50297-102
    OPTIONAL FORM 297 ( Rev. Z-90 )
    USDA/USDI
    ————————————————-

    ** Yarnell Fire AZF Bulldozer Equipment Ticket 2

    This is a ‘continuation ticket’ for the same dozer as in Ticket 1.

    This ticket covers the OVERNIGHT shift from MIDNIGHT on June 30, 2013 through the morning/day of July 1, 2013.

    On this ticket… the AGREEMENT NUMBER field was not filled in with the Yarnell Hill Fire Incident number as seen on Ticket 1… but this time the ‘4. INCIDENT NUMBER’ field is filled out and DOES contain the 6 digit Yarnell Hill Fire Incident code number.

    The handwriting is definitely different between this ticket and Ticket 1, as is the ‘AUTHORIZED AGENT’ signature at the bottom of the form.

    ————————————————————-
    EMERGENCY EQUIPMENT SHIFT TICKET
    NOTE: The responsible Government Officer will update this form
    each day or shift and make initial and final equipment inspections.

    ( Initials in top right corner appear to be “E-lle” )

    1. AGREEMENT NUMBER: ( Blank )
    2: CONTRACTOR (name): Yavapai County
    3. INCIDENT OR PROJECT NAME: Yarnell Hill
    4. INCIDENT NUMBER: 130688 ( Yarnell Hill Fire )
    5. OPERATOR (name): Donald Rezzonico
    6. EQUIPMENT MAKE: CAT
    7. EQUIPMENT MODEL: D7? ( R? )
    8: OPERATOR FURNISHED BY: ( X ) Contractor – (__) Government
    9. SERIAL NUMBER: 06562 ( Same as Ticket 1 )
    10. LICENSE NUMBER: ( Blank )
    11. OPERATING SUPPLIES FURNISHED BY: ( X ) Contractor (wet) – (__) Government (dry)
    12. DATE MO/DAY/YR: 7/1/13
    13. EQUIPMENT USE
    START: 0000 ( Midnight )
    STOP: 1300 ( Original entry of 1500 was scratchd out )
    HOURS/DAYS/MILES (circle one): WORK: 13 ( Original entry of 15 scratched out )
    SPECIAL: ( Appears to contain the initial “CS” ?? )
    14. REMARKS ( released, down time and cause, problems, etc. ): ( Blank )
    15. EQUIPMENT STATUS
    (__) a. Inspected under agreement
    (__) b. Released by Government
    (__) c. Withdrawn by Contractor
    16. INVOICE POSTED BY ( Recorder’s Initials ): ( Blank )
    17. CONTRACTOR’S OR AUTHORIZED AGENT’S SIGNATURE
    ( Signature differs from Ticket 1 but is not legible Could be something like “D P” ? )
    18. GOVERMENT OFFICER’S SIGNATURE: ( Blank )
    19. DATE SIGNED: ( Blank )

    NSN 7840-01-119-5825
    50297-102
    OPTIONAL FORM 297 ( Rev. Z-90 )
    USDA/USDI
    ———————————————————

    ** Yarnell Fire AZF Bulldozer Equipment Ticket 3

    This is the first ticket for the dozer ordered from “May Machinery” which showed up at the Yarnell Hill Fire later in the afternoon on Sunday, June 30, 2013.

    On this ticket, there is now a unique ‘1. AGREEMENT NUMBER’ appearing that simply matches the DATE in Month / Day / Year format ( 01 – 07 – 13 ), but the “4. INCIDENT NUMBER” still matches the Yarnell Hill Fire.

    ————————————————————-
    EMERGENCY EQUIPMENT SHIFT TICKET
    NOTE: The responsible Government Officer will update this form
    each day or shift and make initial and final equipment inspections.

    ( Initials in top right corner clearly legible as “E39” )

    1. AGREEMENT NUMBER: 01-070-13
    2: CONTRACTOR (name): May Machinery
    3. INCIDENT OR PROJECT NAME: Yarnell Hill
    4. INCIDENT NUMBER: AZ-A1S-130688 ( Yarnell Hill Fire )
    5. OPERATOR (name): William May
    6. EQUIPMENT MAKE: CAT
    7. EQUIPMENT MODEL: D5HXL
    8: OPERATOR FURNISHED BY: ( X ) Contractor – (__) Government
    9. SERIAL NUMBER: 8RC05142
    10. LICENSE NUMBER: ( Blank )
    11. OPERATING SUPPLIES FURNISHED BY: ( X ) Contractor (wet) – (__) Government (dry)
    12. DATE MO/DAY/YR: 6/30/13
    13. EQUIPMENT USE
    START: 1410 ( 2:10 PM )
    STOP: 2300 ( 11:00 PM )
    HOURS/DAYS/MILES (circle one): WORK: ( Blank, but “Days” word is circled )
    SPECIAL: ( Blank )
    14. REMARKS ( released, down time and cause, problems, etc. ): “Mob IN” ??
    15. EQUIPMENT STATUS
    (__) a. Inspected under agreement
    (__) b. Released by Government
    (__) c. Withdrawn by Contractor
    16. INVOICE POSTED BY ( Recorder’s Initials ): ( Looks like “SH” or “8H” ?? )
    17. CONTRACTOR’S OR AUTHORIZED AGENT’S SIGNATURE
    ( Clearly legible as “William May” )
    18. GOVERMENT OFFICER’S SIGNATURE: ( Not legible )
    19. DATE SIGNED: 7/2/13

    NSN 7840-01-119-5825
    50297-102
    OPTIONAL FORM 297 ( Rev. Z-90 )
    USDA/USDI
    ———————————————————

    ** Yarnell Fire AZF Bulldozer Equipment Ticket 4

    This is the second ticket for the dozer ordered from “May Machinery” which showed up at the Yarnell Hill Fire later in the afternoon on Sunday, June 30, 2013.

    This ticket is pretty much identical to ‘Ticket 3’ but contains the dozer hours for July 1, 2013 instead of June 30, 2013.

    ————————————————————-
    EMERGENCY EQUIPMENT SHIFT TICKET
    NOTE: The responsible Government Officer will update this form
    each day or shift and make initial and final equipment inspections.

    ( Initials in top right corner clearly legible as “E39” )

    1. AGREEMENT NUMBER: 01-070-13
    2: CONTRACTOR (name): May Machinery
    3. INCIDENT OR PROJECT NAME: Yarnell Hill
    4. INCIDENT NUMBER: AZ-A1S-130688 ( Yarnell Hill Fire )
    5. OPERATOR (name): William May
    6. EQUIPMENT MAKE: CAT
    7. EQUIPMENT MODEL: D5HXL
    8: OPERATOR FURNISHED BY: ( X ) Contractor – (__) Government
    9. SERIAL NUMBER: 8RC05142
    10. LICENSE NUMBER: ( Blank )
    11. OPERATING SUPPLIES FURNISHED BY: ( X ) Contractor (wet) – (__) Government (dry)
    12. DATE MO/DAY/YR: 7/1/13
    13. EQUIPMENT USE
    START: 0600 ( 6:00 AM )
    STOP: 2000 ( 8:00 PM )
    NOTE: Another start/stop entry was made but then scratched out.
    HOURS/DAYS/MILES (circle one): WORK: ( Blank, but “Days” word is circled )
    SPECIAL: ( Blank )
    14. REMARKS ( released, down time and cause, problems, etc. ): ( Blank )
    15. EQUIPMENT STATUS
    (__) a. Inspected under agreement
    (__) b. Released by Government
    (__) c. Withdrawn by Contractor
    16. INVOICE POSTED BY ( Recorder’s Initials ): ( Blank )
    17. CONTRACTOR’S OR AUTHORIZED AGENT’S SIGNATURE
    ( Clearly legible as “William May” )
    18. GOVERMENT OFFICER’S SIGNATURE: ( Not legible but same as Ticket 3 )
    19. DATE SIGNED: 7/2/13

    NSN 7840-01-119-5825
    50297-102
    OPTIONAL FORM 297 ( Rev. Z-90 )
    USDA/USDI
    ———————————————————

    Reply to Sonny continued next message…

    Reply

    • Reply to Sonny continued…

      >> Sonny also wrote…
      >>
      >> There is a map on this showing a burn out right north of Glen Isla-Yarnell as well
      >> as that one along the Peeples Valley road.

      Yes… but that MAP in that PDF file sent as a result of FOIA request is simply detailing what fire-prevention efforts had been done in the PREVIOUS YEARS leading up to the Yarnell tragedy.

      As those FOIA-obtained documents show… there WAS a lot of ‘preparation’ work done from time to time in that area… including a big clearout of the actual Model Creek Road ( with a masticator machine ) that would then become a ‘line of defense’ on the north side of the fire on June 30, 2013.

      I don’t think a lot of this ‘prep work’ was a big secret but it’s interesting to see it all spelled out concisely in that FOIA document supplied by Arizona Forestry.

      >> Sonny also wrote…
      >>
      >> That burn out is marked Shrine with a big circle around it and correlates
      >> with the video I told you about that may have dissappeared.

      Copy that.

      As far as the MAP goes… that ‘burn out’ that is marked is simply someone running a highlighter on that TOPOGRAPHIC MAP over what we have come to call the “Cutover Trail”.

      That’s the ‘trail’ that connected the Sesame Clearing area ( where the Granite Mountain vehicles were parked ) to the Shrine Road Youth Camp… and is the same trail that SPGS1 Gary Cordes asked the dozer to ‘improve’ later that afternoon as part of a “last-ditch effort” at keeping the fire out of Yarnell. It’s that ‘Cutover Trail’ where Blue Ridge *almost* actually got to do some actual WORK that day.

      When the Blue Ridge crew had finally been given a work assignment that day after sitting around doing nothing since their arrival that morning… they got “lined out” on this same “Cutover Trail” to try and “follow up” on the “dozer push” already done there.

      By the time the Blue Ridge Crew got “lined out” on this “Cutover Trail” the shit was already hitting the fan. Brendan McDonough was now being actively rescued by Brian Frisby in the Polaris Ranger… the GM vehicles now needed to be evacuated… and the Blue Ridge Crew was told to RTO ( Reverse Tool Order ) and haul ass back to the Shrine Road Youth Camp and get the hell OUT of that area.

      So this map obtained via FOIA is just showing the original CREATION of that ‘Cutover Trail’ there which was never intended to be a real ‘firebreak’… but even former Yarnell Fire Peter Andersen says WAS intended to be used as an ’emergency escape route” for citizens in case of wildfire.

      The CIRCLED area there on the right side of that ‘highlight line’ in that FOIA MAP is actually the Shrine Road Youth Camp itself… that ALSO received some ‘firebreak’ improvements in the years leading up to the Yarnell tragedy.

      >> Sonny also said…
      >>
      >> That map correlates with what we saw in the video–that video showed
      >> Mark Danielson’s pickup coming out near the Shrine while this was going
      >> on. He later disappeared, it is said due to the depression from loosing
      >> everything where he lived right near the Shrine. He had borrowed a gun
      >> and walked off leaving his pickup, everything he had from the fire and has
      >> not been seen since. We looked for his bones and some we found were
      >> ancient Indian bone fragments and others we were told animal bones.

      Yes. That man who Prescott National Foresty employee Jason Clawson said he would help and whose face was blurred in that M2U00266R Aaron Hulburd video by the US Forestry Service is, in fact, the one who then killed himself, after the fire.

      >> Sonny also wrote…
      >>
      >> I could not find a date when that map was made,

      There IS a DATE on it… but the copy of it included in that PDF file is so bad that the area where the image was copied has ‘pixelated’ and it’s impossible to read the date itself.

      Original print was too small and copy was too bad to make out the DATE.

      >> Sonny also said…
      >>
      >> maybe you can but the GPS info is on it and it is clearly marked where the
      >> burns were made.

      Yes… but a lot of that pre-Yarnell-Fire clearing work shown on the map says it was done
      with a ‘masticator’ and not necessarily actual ‘burnouts’.

      The clearing work being shown in that FOIA map along Highway 89 was clearly just work
      done with lawnmowers, masticators and/or road crews.

      >> Sonny also said…
      >>
      >> Who made the map also? I always dated and wrote my name to maps I made
      >> when in the military. Were those erased or covered in that document.

      I’m not seeing any ‘whiteout’ or ‘sno-paque’ marks in that copy of that image.

      The reason the DATE can’t be read is because someone just had their head up their
      ass when they created this digital copy of this map and it’s not a good copy of the original.

      Whether that was all intentional… I cannot say.

      Only Arizona Forestry could answer THAT question.

      >> Sonny also said…
      >>
      >> This report is a grants report and states these were 2006-2007, and makes me
      >> wonder if they were not following through again according to the map
      >> of the earlier burn?

      It’s possible… but I still believe that indication of work there on the ‘Cutover Trail’ is nothing but a reflection of what former Yarnell Fire Chief Peter Andersen has talked about before… that they put that trail in to serve as an ESCAPE ROUTE for citizens to get either to/from the Glen Ilah subdivision in case a wildfire from the EAST took out part of Highway 89 before everyone could evacuate either Yarnell or Glen Ilah.

      That “Cutover Trail” then just became a “last distch effort” idea on the part of SPGS1 Gary Cordes to try and protect Yarnell when the fire on June 30 started blowing past all of his established trigger points far faster then he had imagined it would ( or even could ).

      >> Sonny also said…
      >>
      >> Your video listed is of the Peoples Valley road into that community.

      To be clear… it’s not MY video. We are talking about the first 3 of those additional 21 Aaron Hulburd Videos that the US Forestry Service had always been hiding from investigators but finally got ‘popped loose’ with an FOIA request from out host(s), John Dougherty and InvestigativeMEDIA.

      I’m still not sure we have determined exactly WHICH road that is we see the FFs doing that “walkout and burnout” on. It could be that segment of the Hays Ranch Road or it could be a segment of Model Creek Road.

      Key there, however, is that BOTH of those ‘segments’ were KNOWN to have had at least SOME ‘manual burnouts’ taking place. That was never a mystery or any kind of ‘secret’.

      >> Sonny also said…
      >>
      >> I am not familiar much with what went on there, nor of that area. Leonard Hunter
      >> worked on that burn out and seems it was not so successful either.

      Yes. Leonard Hunter has talked about those burnouts on the NORTH side.

      More later.

      Reply

      • >> Sonny also wrote…
        >>
        >> I could not find a date when that map was made,

        There IS a DATE on it… but the copy of it included in that PDF file is so bad that the area where the image was copied has ‘pixelated’ and it’s impossible to read the date itself.

        Original print was too small and copy was too bad to make out the DATE.

        reply by Joy: I have the print out and it too is blurry and unable to read. Carrie snail mailed all information as well as email. Great lady, Carrie.

        Reply

        • I believe that map was created ( by Carrie herself? ) in direct response to your FOIA request.

          In other words… I don’t think it was “pulled from a file”.

          It appears as if ( in order to completely fulfill the request ) someone just printed a TOPOGRAPHICAL map of the Yarnell / Peeples Valley area and then just DREW on it to indicate where the printed reports of the fire prevention work that had been done indicated that work HAD been done.

          It’s really just those three distinct areas where there was some record of ‘clearing’ work having been done on file there at Arizona Forestry.

          1. The Model Creek Road area up in Peeples Valley
          2. Along Highway 89 in/around the Yarnell downtown area.
          3. Along that ‘Cutover Trail’ that connected the Sesame Clearing area to the Shrine Road Youth Camp. The youth camp is actually what is CIRCLED there.

          These maps in no way are trying to indicated ‘burnouts’ that happened the weekend of June 30, 2013.

          It’s just a map showing where the ‘prevention’ work PRIOR to the Yarnell fire seemed to have been focused in the years leading up to the tragedy.

          Former Yarnell Chief Peter Andersen has already said that the ‘Cutover Trail’ WAS specifically created with ‘wildfire’ in mind… but not as any kind of actual intended FIREBREAK. It was just to establish some kind of ’emergency escape route’ so people could move between the North Yarnell ( Shrine Road ) area(s) and the Glen Ilah area without having to use Highway 89, in the off chance the Highway itself might get cut off by a wildfire coming from the EAST of the Highway.

          Reply

      • Joy backs up my memory of those firefighters using drip torches right there above that short rock wall in the video that has been deleted from U-tube. When we saw that we did not realize the significance of that video–in fact neither Joy or I had any inkling of what drip torches were at the time nor did we realize what they were actually doing and even if it had significance. Since we have through this site and many hikes with knowledgeable fire men and women begun to understand the methods and whys of certain actions wild land firefighters take. This I do know we saw men using drip torches right up that road as clear as a bell. Now how much or how far we could not determine–the video only showed a small portion of that dirt road with those guys using the torches. It would only determine that they were actually burning in the small area the video did show.

        Now I question how would the work above the Sesame street help anyone but that white ranch house up the canyon beyond the immediate shrine area itself. That ranch burned to the ground–I suppose there was no one living there at the time. Beyond the ranch is nothing except dense woods up the canyon and there would be no one to evacuate. To the SW over the ridge and would be Sesame Street in the dirt. The only thing is a burn out there would destroy that one ranch house as long as the wind continued out toward Peeples Valley. If the wind reversed then any burn in that area would head directly over toward the dense Sesame Street area and along the north line of Glen Ilah. It would engulf the Helm’s as well as area between the Helms and continue up into that bowl where deployment was made. It would also enter Glen Ilah from the north end and take out the west end of Glen Islah. Now there is question of timing as to whether that burn had anything to do with causing the men to deploy or indeed was it just the reversing of the Peeples Valley fire only. Either Way we had some bad decision makers that day and the fellows in charge were bumfuzzeled as to how to handle the Yarnell situation. Maybe they knew but just crossed their fingers that the wind would not change on them since as you say WTKTT that Willis and Marsh both knew of the eminent danger of trying to outguess wind changes in an obvious thunderstorm headed their way. That goes for Cordes, Tod Abel, and especially Roy Hall who has so many years in the business. I suppose though if you are really at the top then all you need do is sit back with your feet on the desk and smoke stogies while your trusted underdogs direct traffic.

        Reply

        • Sonny says

          June 12, 2015 at 10:53 am

          Joy backs up my memory of those firefighters using drip torches right there above that short rock wall in the video that has been deleted from U-tube. When we saw that we did not realize the significance of that video–in fact neither Joy or I had any inkling of what drip torches were at the time nor did we realize what they were actually doing and even if it had significance.

          reply from Joy:
          the drip torch videos I remember are on other side of 89 by ranch house restaurant and that wall and a firefighter visible on a hill with Pat Bernard’s place in video and photos and yes where you say above Sonny.

          Reply

          • Reply to Joy A. Collura post on June 12, 2015 at 12:47 pm

            >> Joy A. Collura said…
            >>
            >> the drip torch videos I remember are on other side of 89
            >> by ranch house restaurant and that wall and a firefighter
            >> visible on a hill with Pat Bernard’s place in video and
            >> photos and yes where you say above Sonny.

            Thank you, Joy.

            Just to be clear, though… WHEN did you see this happening?

            I am still assuming this had to be AFTER you and Sonny came in from “the hike” and WHILE you were both evacuating yourselves.

            Did you see this from the car when you took all those other photos that you took as you were passing by the Ranch House Restaurant?

            Reason I ask is if that is the case… those other photos you took while you were passing by the RHR have already been timestamped to a pretty accurate degree… and that would then put a close timeframe on these ‘drip torch’ activities you are also saying you saw.

            Reply

        • Reply to Sonny post on June 12, 2015 at 10:53 am

          >> Sonny said…
          >>
          >> Joy backs up my memory of those firefighters using drip torches
          >> right there above that short rock wall in the video that has
          >> been deleted from U-tube.

          I’m still working on this one, Sonny.

          Thank you again for those photos and YES… you are RIGHT… the ‘short rock wall’ you are now referring to is NOT the one I thought you might have been referring to as seen in that Aaron Hulburd M2U00266R video.

          I haven’t quite nailed down where that one you ARE referring to is actually located.

          Can you actually give a quick, accurate description of just WHERE it is there on Shrine Road? Like… perhaps a close ADDRESS?… or is it really ‘out there’ past the pavement and by the entrance of the Youth Camp?

          I still cannot honestly say I have ever seen ( or heard of ) this VIDEO you are now referring to.

          I am only aware of FIVE videos that were ever posted by that firefighter from the GLOBE Crew that went by the handle of ‘4490red’ on Youtube…

          …and NONE of those FIVE videos he had once posted show anyone using any drip-torches… much less anywhere near the Shrine Road.

          That doesn’t mean there wasn’t this video you refer to.

          I am only just saying that I ( me, personally ) still don’t recall ever seeing it.

          >> Sonny also said…
          >>
          >> When we saw that we did not realize the significance of that
          >> video–in fact neither Joy or I had any inkling of what drip torches
          >> were at the time nor did we realize what they were actually
          >> doing and even if it had significance. Since we have through this
          >> site and many hikes with knowledgeable fire men and women
          >> begun to understand the methods and whys of certain actions
          >> wild land firefighters take.

          Do you happen to remember what MONTH you might have seen that video?

          I mean… was it, say, BEFORE the SAIR report came out in September of 2013?

          Or do you recall seeing it AFTER the SAIR report came out?

          >> Sonny also said…
          >>
          >> This I do know we saw men using drip torches right up that
          >> road as clear as a bell.

          Just to be clear… we’re talking about AFTER you and Joy had successfully made it back to town on Sunday, correct?

          And the ROAD we are talking about is definitely “The Shrine Road”, correct?

          >> Sonny also said…
          >
          >> Now how much or how far we could not determine–the video
          >> only showed a small portion of that dirt road with those guys
          >> using the torches. It would only determine that they were
          >> actually burning in the small area the video did show.

          Part of protecting a ‘structure’ often involves ‘burning out’ near/around it… so there is a chance that is what this video was showing rather than some large-scale line-burnout effort… but I still don’t recall ever seeing the video you are referring to.

          >> Sonny also said…
          >>
          >> Now I question how would the work above the Sesame street
          >> help anyone but that white ranch house up the canyon beyond
          >> the immediate shrine area itself. That ranch burned to the
          >> ground–I suppose there was no one living there at the time.
          >> Beyond the ranch is nothing except dense woods up the
          >> canyon and there would be no one to evacuate. To the SW
          >> over the ridge and would be Sesame Street in the dirt.
          >> The only thing is a burn out there would destroy that one
          >> ranch house as long as the wind continued out toward
          >> Peeples Valley. If the wind reversed then any burn in that
          >> area would head directly over toward the dense Sesame
          >> Street area and along the north line of Glen Ilah. It would
          >> engulf the Helm’s as well as area between the Helms and
          >> continue up into that bowl where deployment was made. It
          >> would also enter Glen Ilah from the north end and take out
          >> the west end of Glen Islah. Now there is question of timing
          >> as to whether that burn had anything to do with causing the
          >> men to deploy or indeed was it just the reversing of the
          >> Peeples Valley fire only.

          IAOI ( If And Only If ) there were some ‘manual burns’ taking place in the areas you are describing… then all these ‘results’ and ‘effects’ you are envisioning COULD have been possible.

          But the fire was definitely SPOTTING as it came into Yarnell and Glen Ilah.

          That really can be easily mistaken for “people lighting fires” ahead of the main fireline.

          But what you are reporting now is quite different.

          Men walking around with drip-torches lighting fires cannot easily be mistaken for natrual “spot ahead” fires off of the main fireline.

          >> Sonny also said…
          >>
          >> Either Way we had some bad decision makers that day and
          >> the fellows in charge were bumfuzzeled as to how to handle
          >> the Yarnell situation. Maybe they knew but just crossed their
          >> fingers that the wind would not change on them since as
          >> you say WTKTT that Willis and Marsh both knew of the
          >> eminent danger of trying to outguess wind changes in an
          >> obvious thunderstorm headed their way.

          The Arizona Department of Occupational Safety and Health has ALREADY determined that the people running that fire were not taking the correct safety precautions for the workers on that fire in any kind of timely fashion that day. That’s what the FINES are really all about.

          Even though firefighting is inherently dangerous… ADOSH determined that workplace became UNNECESSARILY DANGEROUS and workers died because of a lack of attention to their safety.

          Arizona Forestry still wants to say that was NOT the case… and that is why they are still contesting the ADOSH citations and fines.

          There WILL be a resolution to that case.

          Either ADOSH’s findings will be upheld… or they will be mitigated.

          Even if Arizona Forestry finally gives up challenging the citations… the ‘end result’ will be that they are pleading “no contest” to the “unsafe workplace” findings on the part of ADOSH.

          Reply

    • TYPO way up above in the first posting.

      The name of the bulldozer operator as listed on the Arizona Forestry TIME SHEET was NOT misspelled as “Palu Morin”.

      That was MY goof when translating the images in the PDF file(s) to text.

      The NAME on the Work Order for that dozer operator is clearly…

      5. OPERATOR (name): Paul Morin

      He would, apparently, be the one that showed up without a red-card or a radio and the one that was being listed as “missing” along with Granite Mountain later that day.

      It is still totally unknown whether this ‘dozer operator’ had to ride out the burnover in either the cab of the dozer of the cab of the loboy trailer somewhere out there at the south end of the Sesame Clearing area.

      Reply

      • Here are scanned images of the FOUR actual bulldozer timesheets related to Sunday, June 30, 2013 and Monday, July 1, 2013 that were in the possession of Arizona Forestry since the morning of June 30, 2013 and the morning

        The two related to the Yavapai County Dozer were SIGNED on June 30, 2013 and the two related to the “May Machinery” dozer were signed July 2, 2013.

        So that’s how long they have been ‘on file’ at Arizona Forestry.

        Basically… since DAY ONE.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXFdZeyfLlY

        I think it’s important to point out that while we know the operator of that ‘mystery dozer’ working on the south side of the fire showed up with no valid red-card and no radio… the radio he WAS given would most likely have NOT had the Granite Mountain intra-crew frequency programmed into it.

        The radio that was given to ( supposedly ) Mr. Paul Morin came from the Blue Ridge Hotshots.

        Rest assured… Brendan was NOT the only one to most likely have heard most of this heretofore unreported GM intra-crew radio traffic ( at least 3 Blue Ridge Hotshots most likely ALSO heard ALL of it while they were moving the other GM vehicles along with Brendan )…

        However… .this dozer operator ( Mr. Paul Morin? ) was probably not one of those persons hearing that GM intra-crew traffic.

        He WOULD have most likely heard TAC channel traffic such as the infamous YARNELL-GAMBLE radio conversation at 4:27 PM where we appear to hear someone urging Eric Marsh ( and Granite Mountain ) to “hurry to town”.

        Whether any of that ‘registered’ with him or he might remember the CALL SIGN of that mysterious person supposedly urging Marsh and GM to “hurry up” remains unknown.

        Reply

          • No. That’s the PROBLEM.

            NONE of the actual “bulldozer operators” that were actually working the Yarnell Fire were ever interviewed by ANY investigators.

            As far as we know, anyway.

            Reply

      • And we STILL don’t know, I repeat, who that “Justin” was that Cory Ball was sent to “tie in with.”

        (That’s why we used to assume the dozer operator was this “justin.” But we couldn’t find any Justin anywhere.

        So I just went back to check his wording.

        From the YIN:

        “Ball got a quad from FD, and was trying to get on the dozer line to tie in w/ Justin to check it people evacuating trying to get out. At manzanita and lockwood fire was already in the subdivision.”

        From Cory’s notes (in the BlueRidgeIHC.pdf):

        “Instructed to xxxxxxxxxxxxxx and move to HWY 89. Staged on HWY 89 with structure group one.
        [I still REALLY don’t understand this].

        1600 BRIHC disengaging to safety zone.

        BRIHC one informs Structure Group One They are pushing engines everyone out of subdivision.

        xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

        Structure group one assigns me and one other to locate possibility of dozer line to southwest of Yarnell.

        Acquire ATV: travel into subdivision back to Dozer line. Multiple structures fully engulfed and multiple spot fires in subdivision.

        Notify structure group one about fire and structures on corner of manzanita and lockwood
        xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

        Started evacuations of subdivision.”

        Oh, and yes, re-reading these, Brian and Trew DID drive the UTV up the drainage from the Youth Camp to hurry the crew out, and then they followed them out.

        So maybe we need to do a FOIA to find “Justin”?

        Re-reading this is also making me think, after scratching my head some more, that, Cory did drive the BR utility truck with the trailer on it out to “stage” on 89, because the only way he could have “staged” on 89 “with structure group one) was if he had been driving something and not on foot.

        Because, at that time (3:30 PM was his photo at the top of Manzanita where both the dozer and the utility truck were staged), Gary Cordes was nowhere near 89 and Manzanita. Unless I’m missing something.

        So that could possibly mean that that “white’ truck we see Cory Ball entering the YFD parking lot in, might actually be the green truck, instead, but just reflecting the gray sky over it (which is actually how the truck looks in the original photo before I “white-balanced” it.)

        I was, at the time, wondering if it could be a white truck, for some reason. I’ve never been TOTALLY convinced that truck was white. It’s really hard to tell.

        Which reminds me. I’ve been, today, looking a lot at some of the photos and videos that came out early, like June 30 and July 1, to see if there was any footage I had missed.

        I did come across a photo early this morning (which I will go find) that shows a group of fire-fighters standing on what looks like the east side of 89. Gary Cordes’ truck is parked behind them. And there’s a guy with a blue helmet on in that photo.

        I have no clue what Cory Ball looks like, although I did search hard, in vain, to find out.

        Wow, this turned out WAY LONGER than I intended.

        Reply

        • Also, this clarifies that Ball was on an ATV, so that means a one-person vehicle.

          I had often wondered if that “Structure group one assigns me and one other to locate possibility of dozer line……” meant that possible he and that “one other” drove in on the ATV. At that time I didn’t know that an ATV was one-person and UTV was multi-person — something I just learned less than two months ago.

          Just trying to figure out Ball’s whereabouts (except for when he’s taking photos, which I really wish he had done more of, all things considered) is hard enough, much less Justin’s much less the dozer’s.

          So now I’m thinking Ball walked to the dozer/utility vehicle staging area, drove the utility vehicle (with the trailer) out to 89, drove up 89 to some place where Gary Cordes was parked (either before, during, or after Cordes was involved in evacuating that neighborhood just north of where Shrine comes out).

          And, then, there, Cordes assigned one of those fire-fighters standing around there to go with Ball (which probably makes some sense) to figure out how to do this little task.

          Which, still, doesn’t totally make sense, because I would assume, then, that Ball would have still been driving the utility truck. Which he wasn’t, when they pulled into the Yarnell Fire Department.

          Sorry, folks, I’m really thinking out loud here.

          So maybe Ball actually DID walk all the way out from the cut-over (with or without the help of the dozer) and then all the way up 89 to where Cordes was parked, and Cordes assigned someone with a vehicle to be the “one other” to accompany Ball on this mission?

          Anyway, this narrative doesn’t completely solve the riddle of “Ball got a quad from FD, and was trying to get on the dozer line to tie in w/ Justin.”

          This makes my head hurt. Which it has always done.

          So I’ll do something easy and go find the photo.

          But at least this kind of lays it out. Faults and all.

          Reply

          • >> Marti said…
            >>
            >> So maybe Ball actually DID walk all the way out from
            >> the cut-over (with or without the help of the dozer) and
            >> then all the way up 89 to where Cordes was parked, and
            >> Cordes assigned someone with a vehicle to be the
            >> “one other” to accompany Ball on this mission?

            Personally… I’ve never felt there was enough TIME for that.

            It really seems like Ball had to have been ‘mobile’ throughout all this.

            Last time we checked this… I thought there was basically a consensus that unless other evidence surfaces ( like some frickin’ unredacted Blue Ridge Unit Logs ) the following made sense…

            1. At the same time the Blue Ridge Crew that was getting ‘lined out’ on the Cutover Trail was told ( by Frisby and Brown ) to RTO and haul ass back to the Youth Camp… the dozer was also told to return to its staging area there at the bottom of the Sesame area.

            In other words… right after Frisby and Brown took that short little recon trip back up north in the Sesame area ( captured in GPS data ) and saw that the fire had already advanced beyond where the GM vehicles had been staged at the top of the Sesame area…. it was time for EVERYONE to get the hell out of there ( dozer included ).

            2. Cory Ball traveled south in the Sesame clearing area WITH the dozer and its operator ( who now appears to have been someone called Paul Morin ).

            3. As soon as they arrived there… it was now Ball’s job to hop into the Blue Ridge chase truck ( with Polaris trailer ) that was ALSO staged there with dozer LOBOY and get THAT Blue Ridge vehicle + trailer over to the Ranch House Restaurant staging area.

            4. So he did that. Leaving the dozer operator to his own devices there at the bottom of the Sesame clearing area.

            I thought that made sense.

            Time for EVERYONE to get out… and Ball just hitched a ride on the dozer back to where that other GM chase truck + Polaris trailer was and then he drove that out to the RHR.

            As far as what was supposed to happen NEXT… there’s the mystery.

            Did Cory Ball already KNOW he was supposed to return to ‘meet up’ with the dozer again and do this ‘scouting’ for Cordes as he exited with the BR Chase truck… or did that ‘directive’ from Cordes to scout more dozer line not come until he had delivered the BR Chase Truck + trailer over to the RHR?

            I actually don’t think Cory Ball traveled UP Highway 89 to where Cordes was. I think he reached the RHR… and then this directive to scout more dozer line came at him from Cordes over the RADIO while he was there in the RHR parking lot.

            It seems like Ball was there at the RHR early… before the others had gotten their shit together out there in the Youth Camp to evacuate from there…and certainly WAAAT before Frisby and Brown were going to show up there at the RHR with the Polaris Ranger.

            So now Ball has a ‘new ‘assignment’ from Cordes to get with dozer guy and scount emergency line near Glen Ilah… but he has no way to get back OUT there to (quote) “Meet up with Justin”, or Paul, or whatever the heck that dozer operator’s name really was.

            Only then did SOMEONE ( ?? ) who was also there with Ball at the RHR become aware of his predicament and offer him the ATV that was sitting over at the YFD station.

            So that’s when Ball got ‘driven’ over there to get it… by ????

            We actually know that the GM Chase Truck + Trailer did NOT get ‘staged’ over at the YFD. The Tom Story photos show it right there in the RHR parking lot. If Ball had driven HIMSELF over to the YFD in that BR truck then that’s where it would have ended up post-deployment and we wouldn’t be seeing it there at the RHR.

            So whether that was a WHITE truck or not… I think those photos of Ball’s taken near the YFD prove that SOMEONE was just ‘dropping him off’ there to get that ATV.

            But here’s a new complication.

            I just received 3 photos from Joy that were taken right where Fountainhill road meets Lakewood Drive.

            On the bottom edge of one of them ( 097.jpg ) is someone standing in the middle of Lakewood Drive with a Blue Ridge Helmet.

            There is no mistaking it. Blue Helmet with definite BR logo on the side.

            Unfortunately…that photo was someone leaning UPWARDS with the camera in PORTRAIT mode and trying to capture the ENORMITY of the smoke PLUME that was now rushing towards Glen Ilah… so ONLY the Blue Ridge Helmet itself is visible there at the bottom edge of the photo.

            In the timeframe in which this photo appears to have been taken… this could ONLY have been Blue Ridge Hotshot Cory Ball ( or the top of his head, anyway ) being photographed there at Fountainhill and Lakewood.

            Every other Blue Ridge Hotshot ( that we know of ) was actively evacuating from the Youth Camp at this same moment in time.

            So here’s the new conundrum…

            Fountainhill road is not that far in on Lakewood from Highway 89.

            If Cory Ball had now been on this ‘mission’ that SPGS1 Cordes had given him ( and he mentions in his own Unit Log )… and Ball was hell-bent-for-leather on the ATV to try and rejoin ‘Justin’ ( or Paul? ) and the dozer…

            …there was NO REASON for him to have STOPPED there at the intersection of Fountainhill and Lakewood.

            This same photo DOES appear to show the very top of someone else’s head very close to the Blue Ridge Helmet and also standing in the street… possibly TALKING to that Blue Ridge Hotshot.

            So maybe this new photograph actually matches THIS entry from Cory Ball’s own Unit Log…

            “Ball got a quad from FD, and was trying to get on the dozer line to tie in w/ Justin to check it people evacuating trying to get out. At manzanita and lockwood fire was already in the subdivision.”

            Key phrase: “people evacuating trying to get out”.

            The other TWO new photographs I’ve seen from Joy ( 085.jpg and 089.jpg ) most definitely show those folks there at that same intersection of Fountainhill and Lakewood packing up to leave and (quote) “trying to get out”.

            So maybe this new 097.jpg photo actually does capture the moment Ball was referring to in his own Unit Log about running into people “trying to get out” as he tried to make his way back to “the dozer”.

            I will ping Joy and see if she is AOK with me publishing these 3 new photos she sent attached to an email.

            If that is NOT Cory Ball’s Helmet in that photo… and if the timing is any earlier than I believe it is for that photo… then we’ve got a rogue Blue Ridge Hotshot on Fountainhill and Lakewood in a timeframe when there is no other evidence that supports a reason for him being there.

            Reply

            • I haven’t checked my email (as usual) so I don’t know if Joy sent these photos to me.

              But I’m sure, if she hasn’t, she will if I ask her.

              So the question I have is, at this moment, does that person you are seeing look like the person I’m seeing in that photo of the firefighters in front of Gary Cordes’ truck?

              Reply

              • OK I’m seeing what you’ve written down below.

                Seriously, maybe we should be talking about this via telephone.

                All things considered.

                Reply

              • Reply to Marti Reed post on June 12, 2015 at 8:23 pm

                >> Marti said…
                >>
                >> So the question I have is, at this moment, does that
                >> person you are seeing look like the person I’m seeing
                >> in that photo of the firefighters in front of Gary
                >> Cordes’ truck?

                Actually no… it does not. There isn’t much showing of that Blue Helmet with the obvious Blue Ridge Hothshot Logo on it in that 097.jpg photo taken at Fountainhill and Lakewood ( circa 4:15 PM ?? )…

                …but from what IS showing my gut feeling is that it’s not the same helmet 9 or BR Hotshot ) as seen in the other photo of the FFs around that red truck on Highway 89.

                Give the timeframe for that ‘group photo now ( post-deployment )… you are right… that could *theorectically* be any of the BR Hotshots.

                I think MOST of the BR Hotshots had moved on to the ICP by the time this ‘group’ photo was taken… but not all of them.

                I still do wonder who that guy with the white helmet and the chest harness is there dominating the left half of the photo and whose face is CLEARLY visible.

                ANYONE who even remotely knows this guy should be able to ID him in that photo since ( unlike a lot of these damn photos ) his face is CLEARLY seen.

                Reply

            • OK, some more thinking out loud down here in the weeds, where I’m currently comfortable with this being located.

              And now that I have my coffee and huevos rancheros in front of me, and a good (albeit INTERRUPTED) night’s sleep behind me……

              So here’s the timing we have to fit this photo into (and I agree that ffs-in-front-of-Cordes’-truck photo was taken near the RHR, and I actually DON’T now think that’s Cory in it)

              I agree with you that most likely Cory came down on the dozer to the dozer staging area.

              His photo there is at 3:50.

              His next two photos, being driven into the FD parking lot are at 4:28.

              If that photo was taken on his way to Yarnell, it had to have been taken somewhere in that window.

              (Until I actually opened up Google Earth this morning, I didn’t think that was likely. But, yes, now I think it’s possible. Although, if he were hell-bent-for-leather to get to that ATV and back to the dozer, it does seems strange that he was standing around there talking to somebody.)

              With enough time factored in for him to get to the RHR and then figure out how to get to the FD and get the ATV.

              Also, Cordes could have arranged that ahead of time, so maybe all Cory had to do was just get himself and a driver there.

              And, all things considered, this is making me think Cordes gave him the assignment as Cory was “heading down” to the utility truck. That window (especially if it includes that photo) is just too short for the assignment-call and all the arranging to have happened then, I think.

              But there are problems with that scenario, also. As in, why didn’t he and Justin /Paul just scout it without the rigamarole associated with going to get an ATV.

              So that makes me think Cory’s FIRST assignment was to get the utility truck to the RHR parking lot relatively pronto.

              And when Cordes knew he was doing that, Cordes realized it would help with his “plan” to then send Cory back out on that YFD ATV that Cordes probably knew better than anybody was parked and unused there and knew how to quickly connect the dots to get it loaned to Cory.

              Although Cory’s notes really make it sound like it was after Brian told Cordes “They are pushing engines everyone out of subdivision” that xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx happened, and THEN Cordes gave him “and one other” the assignment.

              Whatever.

              So, point being, that photo could have been taken around 4:15 with Cory on his way out to stage at the RHR.

              So, next scenario. It’s taken when Cory was on his way back in to Glen Ilah. That would, then, have to be later than 4:28 and, probably somewhere around the time he took image 1888 at 4:43. I never geo-located that photo.

              And, personally, I think the smoke in that photo 097 looks WAY more like the smoke in 1884 than the smoke/scene in 1888 etc.

              By 1888 (4:43) the smoke column was bending over down on top of Glen Ilah and Yarnell and not rising straight up like that. In 1888 the smoke is well into engulfing everything there.

              So my bet is on that photo with Cory in it being taken during his drive out of Glen Ilah with the utility truck and the trailer, to stage it at the RHR, either with or without knowledge of the next assignment he was going to get.

              I swear on a stack of holy books that this is the last Yarnell-related rabbit hole I’m going to allow my curiosity to lead me down.

              And I’m currently of the opinion that Justin = Paul. Nobody calls Trew “Rodgers,” either. So far, I can’t come up with any other equation.

              Reply

              • >> Marti wrote…
                >>
                >> So my bet is on that photo with Cory in it being
                >> taken during his drive out of Glen Ilah with the
                >> utility truck and the trailer, to stage it at the RHR,
                >> either with or without knowledge of the next
                >> assignment he was going to get.

                I agree.

                I suppose we could ask Joy to ask this same person who took the photos more about the circumstances?

                They might not remember any conversation… but surely they would remember whether this FF with a Blue Helmet pulled up to them in either an aquamarine pickup with a big-ass trailer behind it ( and he was heading EAST )… or whether it was a guy on an ATV that stopped for a moment as he was heading WEST.

                This really just amounts to one more piece of detail about what was transpiring in this whole “Go scour more dozer line” story that has never been fully told…

                …but I ( me, personally ), have never considered all this any kind of ‘rabbit hole’.

                I still believe that if/when the ENTIRE story of this “emergency dozer line to protect Glen Ilah” is known… and Cory Ball is someday free to talk like he’s not a member of the damn MAFIA, or something…

                …we mat STILL discover that this ’emergency dozer line’ plan had more to do with Granite Mountain coming down out of the black ( and people apparently telling them to HURRY ) than has been previously assumed.

                It is still VERY suspicious that Cory Ball would have felt all of this was important enough to mention in his own official Unit Log… but over the span of another similar Unit Log and TWO separate interviews with investigators… SPGS1 Gary Cordes himself seemed to be making sure to not mention one word about it.

                Reply

                • Followup…

                  It is actually highly likely that AS Cory Ball may have been humping that BR Chase truck and Polaris Ranger Trailer out of the area and over to the RHR… he might have purposely STOPPED there at that ‘clearing’ where Fountainhill Road meets Lakewood drive.

                  As the pictures that Joy has proivided show… that was an ideal place to get a glimpse of the fire as it was marching directly towards Glen Ilah.

                  So maybe Cory Ball really did just STOP there on his way out to make his own good assessment of the situation and what he was now seeing there coming towards Glen Ilah.

                  It just so happened it was also where those people wer actively evacuating and he did speak to them for a moment or two before moving on.

                  Reply

        • OK. Here’s the location of that photo.

          It has a slideshow of a bunch of photos that people sent in to, apparently, the WALB News 10 (abc) website, which is really weird because WALB is an Albany, Georgia, website. But they have a really great collection of Yarnell stuff on their website.

          Some of that bunch of photos I had seen before, and some of that bunch I hadn’t. Especially this one.

          The photo I’m describing is the 24th image in the slide show.

          I’m seriously curious who took it, because I have a hard time believing that just some random person walked into this group and took this photograph.

          But maybe they did.

          The caption says:

          “VIEWER’S PHOTOS OF YARNELL HILL FIRE
          Firefighters gather along a road that led them to the fireline.
          (Photo credit: Viewer-submitted)”

          http://www.walb.com/slideshow?widgetid=84011

          The photo also includes that Wickenburg Fire Chief that drove that ubiquitous big red truck that I, for the longest time (because of its timeline) mistakenly thought Paul Musser must have been driving.

          Reply

          • I should probably post this whole thing to the top, because I think it’s REALLY important, but it’s such a humongous pita to do it that I am currently not in the mood to do it.

            Actually, all I’m concerned about is that WTKTT and Calvin see it. Because I think they will both understand why I think it’s important.

            Because we are still MISSING:

            The Dozer
            The Dozer Operator (even tho we now know his name)
            Justin
            And, sometimes, the whereabouts of Cory Ball, who was associated with all three of the above.

            Reply

            • But I’m still a little concerned that this whole thing may be way too far lost down in these weeds.

              Or roots.

              Or whatever.

              Reply

              • Ah yes… THAT photo.

                I actually believe we are still there at the Ranch House Restaurant for this photo, and that it’s NOT a photo of some gathering of FFs farther north on Highway 89.

                You are right… that COULD be Cory Ball that in that Blue Ridge Helmet with what looks like some kind of ‘face protector’ deployed? Never could figure that out.

                The TIME would be AFTER DEPLOYMENT… and AFTER the fire had actually mostly pushed through Glen Ilah.

                We are looking SOUTH and the ‘flames’ seen in the background are some of those places south of where Lakewood meets Highway 89 that ‘ignited’.

                That’s always been my take on that photo, anyway.

                We also never figure out WHO is really in this photo.

                Especially the full-frontal face shot of the older guy with the white Helmet and the chest harness clearly visible facing the camera there and dominating the left side of the photo.

                Just to HIS right, on on the very left edge of the photo, is also another CLEARLY visible face. It’s an FF with a BLACK Helmet.

                I still think anyone who was there should be able to easily identify who is in this photograph… even now.

                Reply

                • OK. I didn’t know you had seen this before.

                  I hadn’t.

                  I think I need to do a bit more SLOWER and CLEARER thinking about all of this.

                  Reply

                    • This thread is one of those ‘all over the place’ ones that happens sometimes…

                      ..so just to be clear… I HAVE gone back and verified that this ‘slide show’ photo WAS taken right there in the road in front of the RHR at the spot where Lakewood drive meets hwy 89.

                      So the FLAMES in the background really are from the ‘spotting’ that happened as the fire pushed through Glen Ilah.

                      In other words.. this really has to be a POST-DEPLOYMENT photo.

                      More later.

                • So, yes, I’m agreeing with you now.

                  And I don’t think the blue-helmetted guy looks at all like the blue-helmeted guy in Joy’s photo.

                  Once you corrected me that this was somewhere in the vicinity of RHR and after the deployment, I realized it was almost “anything goes” regarding which Blue Ridge Hotshot that could be.

                  And I just find this whole Georgia website with all these photos and everything really really strange.

                  Maybe somebody there knew somebody in Yarnell?

                  And, by the way, if someone wants to look at their whole Yarnell collection, you can find it here:

                  WALB News 10
                  Sidebar: Yarnell Hill Fire

                  http://www.walb.com/story/22239440/sidebar-yarnell-hill-fire-arizona-wildfire

                  Reply

  105. Bumping utvs because my connection seems not to be allowing me to post in the existing thread. As for UTVs, they simply are a part of the landscape these days, sort of like smartphones.

    But, for Yarnell, the SA that could have been afforded by zipping around on a UTV could have been gotten faster and better by looking at Google Earth or Google Maps Sat view on a smartphone. The main area that a UTV would have benefitted GM was with their lookout. Fortunately, Blue Ridge was able to use theirs to prevent a burnover there.

    Even for hunting and fishing, while there are plenty of areas where atv/utv passable trails allow you much faster access with more gear than on foot, that’s for one or two people. And often the time saving is illusory as well — it is not uncommon to pass ATV parties while on foot in some areas. Great for ranchers, great for hunting guides, but not that impactful in the overall scheme of things.

    Had Steed had one, maybe he could have had a better since of the trail network, but again it was always possible to use a map and UTV time would not have equated to the time for the crew to cover the same ground.

    Reply

  106. I just posted this to Bob down below, but I didn’t want it to get lost so I am reposting it up here because I would like to know what you think.

    Well…yes, it’s the end of the story as far as whether they had one or not, but now I am concerned about adding that my list of “contributing factors”. And if you and I can agree on this, than maybe it shouldn’t be on my list and where would I post my list anyway, so what difference does it make?

    Although I keep hoping for some kind of consensus as far as “end report” or “summary” or conclusion or something concrete to come out this thread, as opposed to random information for the sake of having it here in case somebody else wants to look at it for some reason.

    Maybe I am hoping for too much since the whole point of this thread seems to be random out of focus discussions and research? And no consensus is needed or wanted? And it is every man (and woman) for themselves when it comes to whatever they each choose to take away from this exercise?

    I don’t know, I just asking for some feed back and not necessarily from just Bob. What do the rest of you think? Is there an end game? How will we know when we get to the end? Will that happen when everybody stops blogging or posting?

    Since this is the first citizens investigation of a wildfire it is groundbreaking, but it is also unchartered waters, at least as far as I know?

    Reply

    • My opinion on the ATV Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda, They did not have it if they had it what are all the variables of use? Would the crew have it Steed? Would McDonough have had it for his assignment? Would the Division Supervisor March have had it to run around on ? With or with out it was it a contributing factor? Did marsh need it to make the right decision ?
      To many questions with to many variables? at this point it just dose not meet investigative answers.

      I think there is an end Game and we will know it when we get there. with the Hope that JD will put a final news release out with the thing we have found. That would be my hope

      Reply

      • Bob said:

        “Did marsh need it to make the right decision ?”

        I say no.

        No matter how he would have/should have/did have gotten to where he got to when, according to some fairly-reliable.rumored narratives, he ordered (whether under some possible external pressure or not — we don’t know) Jesse Steed to lead the GM Hotshots down into that bowl full of essential petroleum, in my humble opinion, any order on his part for them to to do that was unrelated to how he got there.

        And, imho, unrelated to what he might have known more about via having hypothetically ridden around on a hypothetical utv/atv.

        He was where he was. He saw what he saw. If this “argument” happened somewhere around the time that that WTKTT-composited video was shot at 4:20 PM when the fire was headed toward the bottom of the canyon and everything was filling up with smoke, whether or not he had been previously riding around on a utv/atv, knowing or not knowing what other possible routes were available, shouldn’t have mattered in regards to that decision to order them to follow that path

        I may be missing something here, but that, in my humble opinion is what matters.

        And I’m in agreement, all things considered, that, even if the Granite Mountain Hotshots had acquisitioned that utv/atv in time to take it to the Yarnell Fire, Eric Marsh would have probably not been the one using it. I think he was the kind of guy who knew he could get further faster and more freely in that kind of terrain on foot.

        But I do think that kind of vehicle would have been an asset to the crew, in general, on that fire. Maybe a real asset to Jesse Steed?

        He could have used it to gain more situational awareness as to the two-tracks that his crew was connected to, including the two-tracks that led down and out from where they were, just in case in a variety of directions that wouldn’t have necessitated an exit via that bowl.

        Would they have assigned that utv/atv to Brendan? Possibly, although possibly not. It gets pretty dicey here.

        I’m kinda sorta thinking here that the person who really needed that situational awareness regarding that fire and HIS CREW was more Jesse Steed than Eric Marsh or anybody else.

        I am thinking Jesse Steed was the one who REALLY needed to know his crew’s options for high-tailing out of where they were (if they decided to do that high-tailing which they really never actually needed to do) more than anybody else.

        Speculation is such an interesting occupation.

        Reply

        • I wrote:

          “Speculation is such an interesting occupation.”

          Especially when what I really need to do is my mom’s back taxes. Part of the “what is the end game” calculation.

          Goodnight and Namaste!

          Reply

        • Right on — Steed, looked according to Josh Eels of Rolling Stones interview stated the men saw him as a sort of Greek God of firefighting. Would that have tainted their own thinking in following his decision to go down. My dad was the Greek God of mining. I am glad that was when I was 9 and working underground with him. I outgrew him somewhere along the line and became my own greek god of mining. He taught me how to sound ground for “widow makers” and what to look out for to stay healthy and alive. Somewhere along the line we stop relying on the judgments of others and start using our own cranium. That has to be with some experience but when does a man disobey an order and not do what he knows is the wrong thing?

          Yes Marti, I agree and considering the distance Marsh was from the men, Steed was right there with them throughout the day. Hard to put most on Marsh if you look at it from that angle. But I believe Marsh had something from other higher commands that pressed him when he did not really want to be pressed. It seems like the chain of command thing here where the Stogie smoker tells the boy below to fetch coffee and if he doesn’t the boss gets a nasty face and that promotion from coffee boy to floor sweep and ten cent raise is likely to be out the window. Someone in command decided those men should be at that ranch instead of safe in the black. As Willis said that is what they do–they could not set still knowing Yarnell was about to burn in his opinion or was it more than just an opinion.

          Reply

      • Bob Powers says

        June 11, 2015 at 6:34 pm
        I think there is an end Game and we will know it when we get there. with the Hope that JD will put a final news release out with the thing we have found. That would be my hope

        reply by joy:

        There may be times we have gaps and take a step back but there is no END TIMES of this ongoing discussion until the proper people speak up. Whitehead/Maughan/203-05-001A S&P is an important factor to finally have people that was there if on the fire or not for an example Bob Brandon’s account states such but let us go back to July 2013 when I was doing septic and water lines and cleanup for folks and I did not KNOW who Bob Brandon was when he was present with a child on Kimberly Leroy’s property and I was busy cleaning up on the Flippen’s property and when he shared to me- THERE IS INDEED more than what he spoke in media…that man shared his scare account in media and books and articles and such but he too has missing elements that does not match to what was shared to me July 2013 and I keep quiet because I understand people’s fears and careers and what he has to say would not affect the end result yet every detail IS important to calculate this all. What about one of the GMHS who perished was very good friends with one of the YCSO that was on the scene that distanced himself from the GMHS loved ones after the fire…harsh. What possibly does that person carry? Information? guilt? what? I mean, you usually see someone close to someone who disconnects like that are afraid to be near to avoid accidentally revealing something. What can Eric Marsh’s best friend that I hiked with offer to the plate? You know Eric. Why besides your own personal reasons can you not get someone else to know what you know or share about this man as you knew him. You saw something after the fire similar to me which my mother tells me do not tell others because they can misjudge you and yet in fact it happened as my mother stated but I did not think of the judgments but the purity in which some want to pinpoint if I was pure than why not share WHO told me they cored or were a serious contributing factor to a certain area—it was not just one. Yet, there is just too many PEOPLE who came to the HIKERS that INDEED there is more details as well as people who have not yet come to the hikers because we have been so open and shared it all but in due time we know YOU will be led to us some way and some how…. We seen a few set of firefighters and homeowners account videos and photos not yet public that also can tell a huge story in itself. I want the Forestry to tell the hikers what happen on these parcels 203-05-001A/203-05-003H that I KNOW as the desert walker IS the connecting wash from Sesame to Shrine area. Why has the investigators not spoke to and are not in the SAIR…????…Georgi Ryan, Tammy Plouffe, Jeff LIchty, Cliff Frederick, Jim Kuempel, Stephen and Jane Steinfelt, Wayne and Barbara Schlegl, Don ALbright, John Shelley, Burkhardt, Roberta Era, Reems, Sickles, Champagne, Gregg, Westwood, Carlin, Richard Mayer, Colvin, Rigelman, Hylton, Huntimeyer, Moxon, Olson, Bunn, DeLange…I CAN GO ON AND ON but William Bennett and Bruce Brown are very important accounts….until you hear each one of their accounts and speak to the men pure and raw in that Baluco and WHitehead…we saw the video of the firefighter near Pat Bernard’s place on hill….WHEN YOU ALL TALK plus much more folks than I will say pieces will fall together and we will near the end of the chapters of the definitive account on YHF but the END of the game will be when the money game ends…and CHANGE HAPPENS how they fight these fires and we do not have to see Alabama 1987 Clanton Burns Private
        1, 1988 Birmingham Heat Stroke Other, 1 1989 Athens Heart Attack Private 1, 1991
        Collinsville Electrocution Private 1, 1994…etc…see here:
        ht t p s: //www.nifc. go v/safety/safety_documents/State. p df
        htt ps: //www.nifc. g ov/safety/safety_documents/Type_Accident.p df
        htt ps: //www.nifc.g ov/safety/safety_documents/year.pd f
        htt ps: //www.nifc.go v/safety/safety_documents/Fatalities-by-State.p df
        htt ps: //www.nifc.g ov/safety/safety_documents/Fatalities-by-Year.p df
        etc….SAFETY MATTERS! Not using Ross Perot’s plane to transport a bronze statue but delivering any and all equipment these men and women need to do their job!
        I just clapped a firm clap in this here Aguila library to that.. S>A>F>E>T>Y> M>A>T>T>E>R>S!!!…we were all over Arizona yesterday posting at different libraries and when you walk into Aguila library it is like a day care center with kids galore on pcs playing games. The librarians are AMAZING how they are with the children when adults arrive to use pcs…they should be awarded by this amazing attitude they display!

        I did contact in person as well as registered snail mail Maricopa County proper areas from the man who put the person I never name on here (because the depth I am “afraid” of that person since 1972 and will always be until the day I die and has affected my faith journey along the way because I cannot comprehend how God could miscreate such calling this person human and even can be in a prison system. The person that put this person away seeked the death penalty and only got twenty and it shows the person got out in April or was moved this year or gets out soon….I have always been unpublished and private and this fire I had planned to share my photos to certain investigators not media but Sonny had told homeowners/reporters/journalists/Denny Foulk in the evacuation shelter so that ended my private unpublished life and now the person who prior to this fire could not know my married name…has it…I have battled how to do this fire from the start and that is when I said any and every tiny detail I shared even if I did not support what was coming to me…I hiked and never denied a hike…we are not so willing to share since 2015 due to what happened on this very site but in the END we will always be there for ANYONE affected by the Yarnell Hill Fire. I think the hikers should join up with Olson and start working on the human factors list because that is what we are interested in…I reckon that is why we are so drawn to Dr. Ted Putnam and his amazing visits. We are always so happy after seeing him. Such good raw energy to him and his wife…FINE fine folks…if Dr. ted Putnam wrote negative about me I can accept it because he has seen into the hikers as well as Ered Matthews and a few others…My mom hopes one author does not talk about my college years in her book because I dropped out weeks before semester was over and I never hear the end of it when topic comes up…my mom thinks like a lawyer…you have to do the work to completion and have the document…the time not completed does not mean you went to college…completion of it means such…my mom is huge on fact base and proof and source and documents and I have tried to live up to her expectations of that throughout life but I am a person who wants to wake up and get the day on and just live…in the end I was to achieve and work the steps to obtain and to get a business administration degree at Rutger’s but I met an Italian guy and as that unfolded I drifted in caring for the whole college degree further education and enjoyed the whole housewife bit and work where and what I wanted and had the “hike first, work later” attitude…as time unfolded…the trauma of earlier took over…I began focusing to long distance bike rides and roller blading and becoming an adrenaline junkie in my teens early adulthood to than just gave up and put the mental image “shit, how did you get to almost 300 pounds?”…blame game of health kicked in but it was not until my right arm locked up after a surgery and I had locked shoulder syndrome and I really had the appearance of a label America says not so much me; “retarded”, I indeed looked like and people whispered as I pass by dragging my leg and right side…I could not due to vanity handle that…I could handle buying size above size 28 because the fat hid the body where 34h and size 28/30 waist once was I got rid of it…but when I shed the weight and started to see size 10,12,14 again I thought HOW THE HELL did I allow myself to do that knowing how I am educated on nutrition—how bad on the heart and veins and so much…its scars of yesterdays that I enabled such…we all have a vice and mine had began to be that and always having a side kick so I never was alone because I am THAT afraid of the person who is soon to be let out or is out…and in the back of my dark sad days I always feel if I get murdered the contributing factors will be this fire and how open I put myself out there after Sonny shared in the evacuation shelter because I did have myself that well hid before the fire except I had hung out with Pacino Family/Tarantino Family in the day as well as other soap stars/celebs and I asked Q’s dad to remove a comment off his blog that had my name and he did otherwise you did not see me online…I just did not want my maiden or married name out there in cyber world…I did not join on any facebook or social media areas…I kept life to “in person” until Kat introduced me to Senior Match in 2011 to look at her profiles and a year before that the boy who got killed…Brophy Prep Senior Robby Mayasich he told me about hiking Arizona site a few hours before he was killed …on highway 89 when he had me take a photo of him and others and I gave them free water and energy stuff and free stuff via promoting my hiking page zazzle. com / congress_ Arizona* …how I am tied to tragedies over time IS a book itself but too hard for me to ever talk about a lot of it…too much…wow…too overwhelming…

        Reply

    • Gary said:

      “Is there an end game? How will we know when we get to the end?”

      The proverbial sixty-four thousand dollar question. (That dates me, for sure!)

      I think that’s a great question. I ask myself that continuously. When the **** does this end? I know I need it to.

      When WE hire the right person to write OUR book?

      When the people that need to be made to testify under oath in public finally testify under oath in public?

      When somebody does a real investigation?

      When the federal fire-fighters finally say **** it and tell their stories that may or may not be killing them slowly?

      When John Maclean finally publishes HIS book (which he’s not gonna do until at least three years after this legal wrangling wrangles itself out)?

      When Gary publishes HIS book with HIS final chapter?

      When there’s no more NEWS for us to post here and then go down into the inevitable rabbit-holes somebody needs to go down into in order to clarify the **** NEWS?

      When I know whether or not Sonny was correct right down below when he wrote:

      “I also would add that Mr. Marsh had a directive from someone or some others and a carrot in front of his cart if he followed through.”

      and:

      “Willis knows a hell of a lot more than Donut in my opinion. He has bled Donut dry of all that Donut knows and Donut has willingly informed him.”

      Which I nodded my head in agreement with, all things considered.

      When the Lessons Learned Center produces a set of Lessons Learned via the Yarnell Hill Wildfire regarding the MANAGEMENT of Wildfires as if Safety Really Matters?

      I guess that’s my top of my head list of Endgames that I’m not sure I can afford to keep working on for somebody else’s salary here, endlessly.

      But since I’m a Creature of Curiosity, and because for some almost incomprehensible reason (it’s all Chris’ camera’s fault–I’m a PHOTOGRAPHER), I don’t know how I can just quit paying attention and walk away, either.

      When I worked on the (also technologically game-changing) Deepwater Horizon Citizens Investigation, after seven months of documenting (essentially 24 hours a day) the intervention on the Macondo Well by twelve remote-operating vehicles, and also the hearings and investigations into that that happened in 2010…………….

      via an Internet Relay Chat that was global…………….

      we were stuck in the same situation.

      If you think THIS kind of threading is, well, impossible to read (which it is)………………..

      the logs of an Internet Relay Chat are an order of magnitude worse.

      We had seven months of 24/7 documentation of one of the most important things that happened on the planet in 2010 logged. In an impossible format.

      So for two months this other guy and I tried to “reformat” it, because it was such an important story.

      (And I also had/still have a HUGE collection of almost ALL the totally AWESOME videos captured by those twelve remote operating vehicles that I kept thinking I should make a movie out of when I got a Round Tuit, which I never did). I mean, really, I KNOW, in DETAIL, how that well was finally capped, and there was a whole lot of nail-biting drama in that, I kid you not).

      And then we walked away. It was really just beyond the two of us. And our friends and relations could have cared less.

      How long do you keep doing what somebody else SHOULD be doing?

      I don’t know.

      Reply

      • For reference, only one tiny sliver of the footage I have of the intervention on the Deepwater Horizon Macondo Well.

        WTKTT and I had a little conversation regarding the brush when I posted this once, long ago.

        But the REAL story of this video is that this is EXACTLY WHEN “Houston” and WE realized there was a very very very very very very very BIG PROBLEM.

        I’m assuming you all should be able to spot the problem. It was a VERY VEXING problem.

        Oh, and, by the way, just for reference.

        I would easily say that Remote Operating Vehicles and their Pilots are the equivalent to Hotshots, when it comes to Deepwater Disaster First Responders. Except that the Pilots are not in any danger. But the ROVs are, as we often saw.
        —————————————–

        Skandi One and the Dancing Brush, Cleaning the Bullseye

        Uploaded on Jul 15, 2010
        Daily Life in the Rov Hood
        A tribute to the rovs, their pilots, and a thank you to Catfish and Rovman on TOD irc.

        https://youtu.be/7gadZ2roCrY
        ——————————————-

        I know this is off topic. As you say, Gary, we often wander around. But sometimes apparently unrelated things can be related.

        Did I ever, as I once thought my end-game was, make the movie?

        No.

        Should I have? I don’t know.

        Reply

        • But the thing that studying Wildfires taught me was that the thing the Yarnell HIll Wildfire had in common with the Deepwater Horizon Disaster was……

          ……the Swiss Cheese Model.

          Reply

            • Maybe I didn’t use the exact correct terminology.

              The thing where all the holes line up.

              That’s exactly what happened, also, on the Deepwater Horizon. But I didn’t have that theory/model in my mind until I started reading about this fire and fatality wildfifires in general.

              And please excuse all my rambling. I was ticked off after having been “stood up” by my daughter at the 2015 Albuquerque Pride Vigil which she made me vow on a stack of whatevers to attend and never showed up to, herself.

              So, yeah, the rum finally kicked in.

              Reply

        • Well Marti…that was a pretty good answer and I can see you are as frustrated as I am. I guess I hoped way back to my proposal that we call this the ASAIT, that we would have a consensus regarding an end product, but since EN was the only who took to that idea, it was obviously a stupid thought.

          But still, I was always hoping for an end product, I guess it’s my government training. U.S. Attorneys who came to put on in-service training for us would always say, “If it isn’t written down, it didn’t happen” when admonishing us to always write complete reports on our investigations.

          I think Bob had a good idea, but I would like to know if John Dougherty thinks it’s a good idea that when this project is finally done, it will be his job to summarize everything we came up with. And if Bob and I can’t agree whether or not it was important or not the GMIHC has access to an ATV, it is unlikely that John Dougherty and I will agree on what out of this mess is important, what is right and what is not. And since it’s John’s thread…he will win that debate, if there is any debate at all. There is always a boss, even when there is no boss.

          Plus, I would think the Return On Investment (ROI) of what will be a huge and very laborious chore for him (I guess that would depend on whether his analysis can be sold and for how much) for what might be a questionable return for his time.

          Maybe I spoke WAY to soon when I said this is the future of wildland fire investigations. After all the SAIT’s SAIR is still the official response from all of the agencies involved and the law of the land. They wrote their investigation up (it was written down, so it happened) held a press conference that was accepted by the mainstream media…and GAME OVER, THEY WON.

          And like I keep saying, it doesn’t matter what the families get the Arizona State Forestry Division to agree to, it will make absolutely ZERO on how fires are fought in the future. They are just too small of a player to have any impact on how business is done, and they are hanging tough anyway on a settlement anyway where they admit fault. Normally…nobody ever admits fault, that is rule number one on settlements from anybody who had deep pockets.

          After all, all THEY have to do, is wait for us to give up and remember we had lives before we started participating in this strangely addictive and time consuming project. And it will all disappear like a water dog. That is a wildland firefighting reference for what a lookout tower can see in the morning after a rain and lightning storm. It is often hard to tell a water dog from lightning fires, so firefighters sometimes spend a lot of time chasing wisps of fog that look like smoke.

          I wanted to ask you how the Horizon Deepwater thread turned out, and it sounds like it was a worst case scenario, in terms of a ton of work, and public concern and involvement and then it was for nothing?

          Well…enough of that, I am probably irritating WTKTT, I don’t want him to scold me again. I hope John Dougherty didn’t die and leave him in charge. I don’t know if I look like his bitch (non-gender specific) or not, but I do know he doesn’t look like my dear wife who is the only one who can tell me “It’s Easter Asshole!” She doesn’t really talk like that, I am the only one in this family who has a potty mouth. You can take the guy (or gal) out of the hotshot crew…but you can’t take the hotshot out of the guy (or gal) at least if they never moved on with their life, and I never did.

          Wait…how about you and I start our own 12 step program for blog addicts? You will go back to your day jobs, because, you have concerned me because you have put so much time into it while your other jobs have been sacrificed. And I will start on the last chapter of my book, which is going to be about the Yarnell Hill Fire, but specifically it will focus on the Human Factors that led directly to the deaths of the GMIHC…so all of you good citizens who are hunkered down behind the WIRE in Prescott…please share. It’s the right thing to do. [email protected]

          And then Marti…we will sponsor each other in our own 12 step program, and when you start “tweaking” to post, you will have to call me first and I will talk you out of it. And you can do the same for me when I start going through my “agonies” and I am on the verge of posting, I will call you for support so you can talk me out of it. And then maybe I can get my last chapter written and finish editing my famous (in my own mind) fire book and you can get some photos edited. What say you? (Lord Of The Rings)

          Reply

          • You wrote:

            “I would like to know if John Dougherty thinks it’s a good idea that when this project is finally done, it will be his job to summarize everything we came up with.”

            I’ve ALWAYS wished and hoped JD would summarize what we’ve been doing all along. And he hasn’t. The only way to know what we have explored/found/circled endlessly in hopes of finding some missing dot is to read this whole thing, and I can’t even imagine doing that.

            So I had pretty much given up hope on that wish.

            Frankly, I’ve been surprised ANYBODY is reading this mish-mash besides us.

            So I would just find solace in the 100k page hits per day I used to be able to read at the bottom of the page, but can’t seem to do any more so I have no clue how many people are still reading this.

            And, yeah, I hear you on the “it ain’t gonna happen” stuff.

            I’ve always believed that the ONLY way ANYTHING was even remotely “gonna happen” was when all those thousands of people who decked themselves out, all over the country, in their fire-fighting formal uniforms for all those memorials (including the big one in Prescott with the Vice Prez and all) and vowed that they would “Never Forget” ………

            ……….would, finally……….

            “Esse Quam Videri”

            “To Be, Not to Seem”

            Which hasn’t happened. And, apparently, won’t.

            And there ain’t nothing in the world I can do about that.

            Like I asked, how long do you do somebody else’s work?

            So maybe I WILL retire on July 1, 2015. And start those virtual road trips.

            Reply

            • And, Gary, when you write your last chapter, I hope you include that “Never Forget”/“Esse Quam Videri” ratio.

              I think that whole phenomenon is a majorly relevant “Human Factor,” all things considered.

              Reply

              • I will have to include it, I believe that is what Eric Marsh strived for, but fell painfully short of, and is probably at the heart of the human factors model.

                Unfortunately, I am do not have the skill set to write a book about the Yarnell Hill Fire, I might be able to put a chapter together for my book, at least I hope I can.

                Reply

                • I should have added, “and the only way I can write about human factors is to take what I can learn about the crew, especially Eric Marsh, and then parrot Dr. Ted Putnam. It will take somebody like him to really write about the human factors concept.

                  Reply

          • When you said famous in your own mindiit remindeme of the saying. ” a legendiin hisoownmmind”..softggigggiggles

            Reply

  107. Sonny posted something yesterday afternoon that somehow ended up way at the bottom of the page. So I’m going to repost it here so it has a chance of being read:
    ————————————————–

    Sonny says
    JUNE 10, 2015 AT 2:37 PM

    Agree to all that Bob Powers says at this point. I also would add that Mr. Marsh had a directive from someone or some others and a carrot in front of his cart if he followed through. Was his thinking clear–no it was fogged with more than datura smoke–Steed was suffering this mind fog as well, but then they all were if you go by those we hiked above the site. To a person, not one thought it would be a good idea to drop down into that bowl knowing a fire was raging not to far to the northeast and seeing Joy’s photos that very morning of the exact spot they died, they were even more convinced of the folly. Dr. Ted Putman will weigh in heavy on this one since it seems to be mind farc and heavy duty human factors including ego infested directories from the top down. Willis knows a hell of a lot more than Donut in my opinion. He has bled Donut dry of all that Donut knows and Donut has willingly informed him. But they must think they are doing the loved ones a favor of keeping back the real story in this. Yet those two are not the only ones privy to what went on. Joy talked to a blond gal that was a firefighter that day and also heard what went on. So there are many that know but for some reason–likely their careers at stake–they keep officially mum. Still they are reporting to friends.

    Gary Olson, I agree a little drinking to some of the shit that went down here. I told United Way when we were delivering their help packages to Yarnell residents that they ought to include a pack of cigarettes and a half pint of good whiskey. Those are the things many people used to calm their nerves in the aftermath– I wasn’t joking, but they laughed.

    Reply

    Reply

    • And, speaking of smoke,

      I think this YouTube video on the National Interagency Fire Center Channel is relevant, especially given the current conversation and remembering what that descent point looked like at about 4:20 PM via WTKTT’s video:

      2014 WFSTAR: Smoke: Knowing the Risks

      https://youtu.be/0gqTbJSQL_U

      Reply

      • Gary Olson says

        June 11, 2015 at 2:24 pm

        Sonny,

        I know I owe you and Joy an email and I am working on it.

        REPLY:
        NEVER HAVE TO FILL IN THE GAPS WITH US-
        you will get around to it when you get around to it.
        or you can get a round coin with the letters TUIT on it
        than you have got AROUND TO IT…or a ROUND TUIT

        Reply

          • So, Gary, are you EVER going to be in Flagstaff in the next six months in case I find my Round Tuit?

            Reply

              • I would rather make a http://www.virtualroadtrip.net to ABQ. Get a couple of dozen tamales from El Merendearo (Posa’s) in Santa Fe, I’ll meet you down by the Rio Grande in ABQ and we will eat them hot right out the corn husks until we get sick. Nothing better than tamales from Posa’s tamale factory in the City Different.

                Reply

                • Wow, Gary, how did you know I just found a geo-tagger for my camera????

                  That looks addicting, but I need a driver. I do my best road photos when someone else is driving.

                  Unless I decide to bite and get a Go-Pro, my next most-wished-for camera.

                  Reply

                  • Yes, I can highly recommend it highly for a black hole for money and time. I really need a geo-tagger for my cameras. What did you find? I shoot the video with dash cam cameras, but if I would have known about Go Pro camera at the time, I would have bought them instead. Next on my list is a drone so I can shoot aerial video.

                    Reply

  108. I said “But of course I agree with you that ATV’s and UTV’s are just toys for boys (and girls) for the most part. I have been thinking back on the fires I went to and by and large, we were lucky to get ourselves with our tools and line gear into them and occasionally be resupplied by helicopter. An ATV…no. I would like to see an ATV and especially a UTV coming in to an LZ in a helicopter sling. Now that would be sight!

    I think they became popular for the military in these desert wars and for hunters who can pick and choose where and when they go places, but for wildland firefighters who realistically fight most wildfires in the forests in the MOUNTAINS…no. I think if you could get an ATV or UTV to a fire, it’s probably not a hotshot fire. Send somebody else…like a gaggle of smokejumpers”

    Please disregard this statement. I guess the world of wildland firefighting has changed since my day. Apparently fighting fire inside wildland/urban interface zones is the wave of the future and I do think a hotshot crew could use an ATV or UTV on any WUI zone fire and it would probably improve their scouting, resupply, hauling hose packs and fittings and backpack pumps, etc. up the fire line and medevac, etc…so what do I know about that…nothing.

    Reply

    • Gary… there wasn’t any need for a discussion about the use of ATV / UTV technology on the Yarnell incident ( specifically ) to expand into a broader discussion about the use of ATV / UTV industry-wide ( and generally ).

      The discussion below was just pretty focused on Yarnell alone, and how these ATV / UTV options were playing out for THAT particular workplace.

      Bottom line is it would have been nigh on impossible for a lot of things that DID happen on the south side of that fire to have taken place WITHOUT the Blue Ridge UTV having been involved… and given the TWO MILE distance between GM’s work assignment and their designated safety zone… GM most surely could have benefitted from having their own ATV up there with them that day.

      It was simply a unique set of circumstances there with that complicated set of overgrown two-tracks being not just the only way to get out to where the fire was… but the only option for any defensive work as well.

      If the Blue Ridge Hotshots had NOT shown up with their Polaris Ranger that day they would have been COMPLETELY useless. Brian Frisby and True heart Brown would have ended up sitting around near the BR Crew Carriers with their thumbs in their ears for the whole day just like the rest of the BR crew ended up doing that whole day.

      Reply

      • Well…technically I agree with part of what you said. The other part I don’t. Bob and I were having our own discussion regarding what we think abut ATV’s and UTV’s on the fire line today.

        If this thread only contained discussion specific to what you think it should…well then it would be your thread and not John Dougherty…so unless and until he puts you in charge or tells me what I can an cannot comment on…I think you should mind your own business and fuck off.

        Just because I am not angry anymore about the Yarnell Hill Fire doesn’t mean you can scold me or talk to me like I am your bitch…got it asshole?

        Wait a minute….was that a test? And I failed? Shit!

        Reply

  109. I just discovered that the “Advances in Fire Practice” webinar on “Vortices and Wildland Fire” finally got posted on the WildlandFireLLC YouTube site.

    It was held in early May, but didn’t get posted until May 21. I had been watching and watching for it , until I wasn’t. I haven’t watched it yet. So here it is.

    “Scott Goodrick, a research meteorologist with the USDA Forest Service, and Jason Forthofer, a mechanical engineer with the USDA Forest Service, 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://youtu.be/8Oo-sRza_98?list=PLEE230AA13A54F8BD

    Reply

    • OK, I just watched it and it’s really interesting and relevant.

      The video of the Ahorn Fire in 2007 looks A LOT like what I’m seeing in the Air 2 Air videos of the Yarnell Fire. Also the “Longitudinal Vortex Pair,” which Scott describes.

      So, yeah, it confirms my previous descriptions. I think it was a rotating double column vortex. It wasn’t just an optical illusion. And I now think that how I had described how this happened was accurate, also.

      I REALLY hope SOMEONE more “in the know” than me analyzes this fire’s column behavior. It deserves it.

      Reply

  110. I also thought about a rant from old school on ATV’s and UTV’s but decided to let it lie with one statement. 90 % of fire lines you could not use them any way.
    Back in the day I have used 4X4’s, Motorcycles/toat-goats, Horses to get to a Fire but never on the Fire Line I hiked those lines a lot at least 4 times a shift. Most places you had to walk.
    If you did not hike in they flew you to the top of a mountain no place for ATV’s

    Reply

    • Copy that… but Yarnell was a unique situation. Every plan anyone had for the south side on Sunday involved that network of two-tracks out there that could ONLY be quickly scouted with QUADs. The ONLY real contribution Blue Ridge Hotshots made at all that same day was because they had that UTV… and given where they been assigned work and a designated safety zone more than TWO MILES AWAY… Granite Mountain really needed at least 1 ATV up there with THEM, as well.

      I still believe the outcome of the day would have been different if GM had had at least 1 ATV or UTV up there.

      Reply

        • As you know Bob, I agree with you on most things, but I do think if Eric Marsh would have been on an ATV his situational awareness would have been greatly enhanced in this specific case.

          I think he would have ridden back up to join the crew to talk to them about the descent and then he would have seen what I believe Jesse Steed and the others were seeing from the top. I think if Marsh would have seen what Steed was looking at down into that cauldron of fire and smoke he would have said, “Ya, let’s not go that way.”

          But of course I agree with you that ATV’s and UTV’s are just toys for boys (and girls) for the most part. I have been thinking back on the fires I went to and by and large, we were lucky to get ourselves with our tools and line gear into them and occasionally be resupplied by helicopter. An ATV…no. I would like to see an ATV and especially a UTV coming in to an LZ in a helicopter sling. Now that would be sight!

          I think they became popular for the military in these desert wars and for hunters who can pick and choose where and when they go places, but for wildland firefighters who realistically fight most wildfires in the forests in the MOUNTAINS…no. I think if you could get an ATV or UTV to a fire, it’s probably not a hotshot fire. Send somebody else…like a gaggle of smokejumpers

          Reply

          • Had they had a UTV it is possible Marsh would have sent it with the Lookout McDonough to get to a lookout spot and use to get out of harms way I have thought that for some time it would have been more of a priority use than relying on BR to come and get the Lookout.
            So would Marsh have had a UTV or not. He was more of a hiker not a rider.

            In his place I would have sent my lookout with the UTV for his safety in the location he went to. Just saying.

            Marsh would have been limited to the two tracks and his scouting would have not been in realistic travel time.

            I guess Flat Landers have more use for them than I do. There as much a pain in the ass as a tool. And yes I own one along with a Horse my chose is a Horse for off trail travel slower but maneuverable.

            Reply

            • It’s hard to argue with your logic, I guess the bottom line for me is don’t know since I can see both sides of the argument.

              Reply

                • Well…yes, it’s the end of the story as far as whether they had one or not, but now I am concerned about adding that my list of “contributing factors”. And if you and I can agree on this, than maybe it shouldn’t be on my list and where would I post my list anyway, so what difference does it make?

                  Although I keep hoping for some kind of consensus as far as “end report” or “summary” or conclusion or something concrete to come out this thread, as opposed to random information for the sake of having it here in case somebody else wants to look at it for some reason.

                  Maybe I am hoping for too much since the whole point of this thread seems to be random out of focus discussions and research? And no consensus is needed or wanted? And it is every man (and woman) for themselves when it comes to whatever they each choose to take away from this exercise?

                  I don’t know, I just asking for some feed back and not necessarily from just Bob. What do the rest of you think? Is there an end game? How will we know when we get to the end? Will that happen when everybody stops blogging or posting?

                  Since this is the first citizens investigation of a wildfire it is groundbreaking, but it is also unchartered waters, at least as far as I know?

                  Reply

  111. I just wrote something to Gary that I want to post up here, because I want it to be seen and read and understood.

    ————————————————————-

    Marti Reed says JUNE 11, 2015 AT 6:51 AM

    The thing that needs to be remembered:

    “Esse Quam Videri”

    “To Be, Not to Seem”

    I knew when I wrote about how I’m still MAD, that, just because you had said you weren’t mad, that didn’t mean you didn’t CARE.

    And I really really appreciate what you have written here.

    I’m chuckling to read about the “whomevers” delighting in our “floundering.”

    They think it’s a game.

    Remember, those behind the “red wall”:

    Esse Quam Videri

    Put THAT in your pipes and smoke it.

    Reply

    • I agree with you and I hope things change. I think this social media experiment is the first one after a disaster fire and is a real game changer. All future investigative teams are going to be looking back on this thread and they will be aware of what they are in for by trying to play all of the games that have worked so well in the past.

      FYI – This is the future of wildland fire investigations.

      Reply

  112. **
    ** SHRINE ROAD BURNOUT?

    Reply to Sonny post on June 10, 2015 at 3:31 pm

    >> Sonny wrote…
    >>
    >> Something besides the ATV’s comes to mind and this is after
    >> realizing that there was a burn out ordered above on that Shrine road.
    >> I wondered if you or Marti or WTKTT or others concerned saw the video
    >> where drip torches were being used along the Shrine Road and just
    >> above the Shrine in the video

    I know of no such video… or any such Shrine Road ‘burnout’ operation ever ordered or carried out on June 30, 2013.

    Are you SURE you might not be thinking of one of the Aaron Hulburd videos that DOES show FFs at Yarnell using drip-torches and lighting up a road?

    It is the video named 0630131534 that was part of the 21 additional Aaron Hulburd video clips eventually released by the US Forestry Service that they had been keeping ‘hidden’ from both investigators and the public throughout all of the official investigations.

    This video most definitely shows FFs walking along the ‘road’ and using their drip-torches to light up the vegetation on the side of the road as they work they way out of an area.

    But this is up on the NORTH end of the fire… and shows some burnouts of either the Hays Ranch Road segment or one of the Model Creek Road segments where that was known to have happened that day.

    Prescott National Forest Employee Aaron Hulburd’s 0630131534 VIDEO…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ7tWpVph90&feature=youtu.be

    >> Sonny also wrote…
    >>
    >> that video was removed from U-Tube and for what reason?
    >> The fighter that put it on would know.

    Well… if you are sure this video is no longer available then it can’t be that you are mistaking it for one of the Aaron Hulburd ones. All of those Hulburd videos are still sitting online in various PUBLIC places.

    >> Sonny also wrote…
    >>
    >> The timing is of utmost importance because it was done when the
    >> extreme winds had taken hold –you can see those trees bending with it.
    >> Now was it the same time the dozer line was being made toward
    >> the Helms–that would be also the Glen Ilah Dozer line.

    I’m not sure what you mean by the “Glen Ilah Dozer line”.

    It appears to be an absolute FACT that SPGS1 Gary Cordes did instruct acting HEQB/DOZB Cory Ball ( a Blue Ridge Hotshot ) to ‘scout out an emergency dozer line’ there somewhere on the northern side of Glen Ilah as a possible last-ditch effort to keep the fire out of that subdivision… but the evidence also seems to show that ‘scouting’ never even had a chance to take place, much less any work on an actual “Glen Ilah Dozer line” itself.

    That’s exactly what BR Hotshot Cory Ball was TRYING to do after he borrowed that ATV from the Yarnell Fire Station and was headed back out to the west of Glen Ilah to rejoin the dozer and the dozer operator… but the fire cut Ball off and he was unable to even get back to the dozer at that point. So no ‘dozer line scouting’ was (apparently) ever even started. It was too late for that.

    They seemed to have simply run out of time to execute on that “idea” that day.

    Are you saying you have evidence to the contrary?

    I actually spent a long time looking at post-fire Google Earth Satellite imagery and could find no evidence of any kind of ’emergency dozer push’ anywhere there on the ground in the areas where it was supposedly being considered…

    …but that doesn’t mean that kind of work wasn’t there.

    Since we still don’t even know exactly WHERE SPGS1 Gary Cordes even thought this dozer line should be… it’s hard to even know where look for it on the ground.

    >> Sonny also said…
    >>
    >> I suspect if they had been ordered at the Shrine then they would have
    >> also been drip firing the dozer line and those winds would have been
    >> heading away from Glen Isla at the time.

    Again… there is still NO EVIDENCE that anyone was ‘drip-firing’ any of those ‘dozer lines’ on the south side of the fire.

    When the Blue Ridge Hotshots finally got ‘lined out’ on that dozer push between the Sesame Clearing area and the Youth Camp… it was already time to evacuate BACK to the Youth Camp and there is NO EVIDENCE that they were ‘burning off’ that Cutover Trail as they did that.

    They simply had to HAUL ASS back to the Youth Camp on foot and they barely had time to do that and reach their Carriers and evacuate.

    Ditto for the firefighters who had been working at the west end of Harper Canyon and who almost lost THEIR lives. There was some testimony to the effect that someone ( Captain Darby Starr? ) had considered ‘burning out after themselves’ as they evacuated Harper Canyon… but there was no TIME for that, either. They all barely escaped with their lives and there is NO EVIDENCE they were dragging their drip-torches behind them and ‘burning out as they left’… or anything like that.

    >> Sonny also said…
    >>
    >> This of course would have protected Glen Isla and yes I know exactly
    >> where that dozer line would be

    Where? Can you describe what you know or give GPS coordinates?

    Or maybe just describe using landmarks such as “From that clearing where Lakewood and Manzanita pavement ends, across that dry creek bed that is there, and then cutting over to
    the Boulder Springs Ranch driveway”… or something like that?

    >> Sonny also said…
    >>
    >> and if they did fire that line and the time is know that would have
    >> cut the GMHS crew off from getting to the ranch because that
    >> fire line would have been just a quarter mile below the ranch

    The problem here remains who THEY might have been.

    There is NO EVIDENCE there was any CREW over there in that area that would have even been in any kind of position to start ‘firing any line’ near the Boulder Springs Ranch.

    >> Sonny also said…
    >>
    >> but now with much learning from firemen of your ilk it seems to me
    >> that there was a burnout right along that dozer line and that might be
    >> the answer to why the dozer line and dozer operator remains hidden
    >> information.

    It remains an absolute fact that we do NOT KNOW what really happened with that dozer, or its operator, or where it ( and he ) actually WERE when the fire actually made its way into the Glen Ilah area.

    The ‘best guess’ is still that the dozer and its operator had made it back to that clearing right there at the south end of the Sesame Clearing area where the paved parts of both Lakewood and Manzanita end… because THAT is where SPGS1 Gary Cordes has testified the dozer’s LOBOY trailer had been parked when the dozer arrived that morning.

    It is still ASSUMED ( for lack of any other evidence ) that the dozer operator actually had to “ride out the burnover” right there in either the cab of the dozer itself or in the cab of the LOBOY trailer.

    But this was NOT due to any manually initiated burnouts.

    There has never been any real evidence that was the case.

    The fire simply came into that area too hard and too fast for him to load up the dozer into the LOBOY in time to successfully escape that area.

    This dozer operator DID end up on the list of “missing persons” that the DPS Ranger 58 Helicopter was told to be “looking for” along with the Granite Mountain Hotshots.

    It is still a mystery who REPORTED this dozer operator as ‘missing’ and who then, in turn, instructed the DPS Officers to add him to their list of people they should be looking for.

    Reply

    • Followup…

      Here is a link to that page on the actual Arizona Forestry website where they first released all of these heretofore ‘secret’ Aaron Hulburd videos which were eventually made public by the US Forestry Service.

      The FIRST THREE videos on this page all fit the criteria you were talking about above.

      ALL THREE of the first three videos show firefighters using their drip-torches and ‘buring out a road’ on June 30, 2013.

      Those would be the videos with the filenames…

      0630131532
      0630131533
      0630131534

      Here is where these videos are…

      https://azsf.az.gov/new-video-clips

      Are ANY of these videos possibly the one you were thinking you saw showing firefighters ‘burning out a road’ that day?

      THESE videos are NOT ‘The Shrine Road’ on the south end of the fire.

      It was a ‘walkout-burnout’ in progress up there on the north side of the fire on either a segment of Hays Ranch Road or Model Creek Road.

      Reply

      • The Picture of the road burn out is a crew moving with the fire with the wind in their favor. This type of burn out is to secure the road as a fire line as you notice the drip troch started fire is being pulled to the main fire keeping the main fire from hitting the road and jumping it. This would be classed as a burn out and not a back fire because of the close proximity of the main fire. There was no place for a new run to develop from the burn out. The Engine was following to insure no spots jumped the Road.

        Where Sonny is talking about would be a major open brush area where they would have had to fire against the wind and put themselves and others (Public at high risk of developing a second Head the Back Fire would have been pushed in front of the main fire both running in the same direction rather than at each other.

        You just do not back fire with the wind in your face. Or with high erratic winds.
        That is a very unpredictable outcome.

        Reply

        • Agree… and just look at how hard the wind WAS blowing there on Shrine road ( as Aaron Hulburd was walking towards KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell there at the start of that video ).

          To have then initiated a manual burnout along that road or rock wall would have been… what’s the word?… insane?

          Besides… absolutely no sign of any drip torches with Clawson, Hulburd or Yowell at that point in time.

          Reply

    • I’m agreeing with your questioning here.

      I have no idea what video(s) Sonny is writing about here, and I asked about that downstream.

      The only videos I know of that were first posted and then deleted from YouTube were those from the Globe Crew. So I was kinda sorta waiting to see if you remembered anything like that.

      Sonny mentioned “a wall.”

      The videos showing the Model Creek Road burnout don’t show a wall.

      I am, as you are, really stumped, here.

      Reply

      • Reply to Marti Reed post on June 10, 2015 at 10:14 pm

        >> Marti said…
        >>
        >> The only videos I know of that were first posted and then deleted
        >> from YouTube were those from the Globe Crew. So I was kinda sorta
        >> waiting to see if you remembered anything like that.

        Those ‘Globe Crew’ videos ( FIVE altogether ) were originally posted by YouTube user ‘4490red’.

        Sonny also mentioned that he THOUGHT the word ‘red’ was associated with the FF who posted the video he’s describing… but NOTHING from YouTube User 4490red showed anyone burning out any roads.

        4490red actually pulled all of his YouTube videos the moment he discovered that WE were referencing them here in this ongoing discussion.

        He has never re-posted them anywhere in public that I know of.

        >> Marti also said…
        >>
        >> Sonny mentioned “a wall.”
        >>
        >> The videos showing the Model Creek Road burnout don’t show a wall.

        The ‘short-rock-wall’ that Sonny was referring to down below is, in fact, right there along Shrine Road, on the SOUTH side of the road and just past that driveway where we see Jason Clawson helping that guy evacuate his vehicles.

        It’s clearly visible in that Aaron Hulburd video showing Clawson agreeing to drive that person’s other vehicle out of their driveway.

        But there is no BURNOUT going on there along that ‘rock wall’… and the TIMEFRAME here is even well after the deployment traffic.

        The actual TIMEFRAME for this Hulburd Shrine Road video showing that ‘short-rock-wall’ is sometime between everyone ( other than Clawson, Hulburd and Yoewll ) having evacuated back to the Ranch House Restaurant and the time when Frisby and Brown showed back up there to try and ‘break through’..

        Reply

        • The Hulburd video I’m talking about that shows this ‘short rock wall’
          there on Shrine Road is M2U00266R and a copy of it is here on YouTube…

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bfvu4xIbHU&feature=youtu.be

          At +1:23… Hulburd ‘walks up’ to Yowell and they are now talking right next to the ‘short rock wall’ that runs the length of the Shrine Road property there on the south side of the road.

          There are NO BURNOUTS happening there…. but there are VERY STRONG wind gusts happening and the trees are swaying hard.

          Reply

          • I agree.

            PS. I’ve always been meaning to ask you, did you, by any stroke of good luck, ever download any of those 4490red YouTube videos?

            Reply

    • WTKTT that is not the video–the video I am referring to had a rock wall to the left albeit only 2-3 ft high and as I remember Shrine area that wall is still there. I will go get a pic since I need to go get my mail and Harley at Yarnell, maybe today. Joy sent you some photos of separated smoke stacks time at about 310 pm –will be nice to pinpoint those. There was a photo of two distinct smoke stacks separated in another photo as well. Joy is trying to remember where we saw that and I think we might have given a copy of that to Dr. Putnam. We want to get those photos again to see if we can verify location of the stack separation and time involved there.

      Next, Kathy Hunter Glover had her Dad’s house backed into by the dozer. This house lies right on the edge of the north side of Glen Ilah. Now by the FOIA Joy brought up three dozer operators, two on 6-30-13. They are Paul Morin, D7R dozer worked 7-2100 and William May of May Machineruy on D5HXL doing what is called a Mob In from 1410-2300. Locations of work is not listed. Donald Rezzonico worked 7-1-13 from 00-1300 as a dozer operator, likely that road into the site? There is a map on this showing a burn out right north of Glen Isla-Yarnell as well as that one along the Peeples Valley road. That burn out is marked Shrine with a big circle around it and correlates with the video I told you about that may have dissappeared.

      That map correlates with what we saw in the video–that video showed Mark Danielson’s pickup coming out near the Shrine while this was going on. He later disappeared, it is said due to the depression from loosing everthing where he lived right near the Shrine. He had borrowed a gun and walked off leaving his pickup, everything he had from the fire and has not been seen since. We looked for his bones and some we found were ancient Indian bone fragments and others we were told animal bones.

      I could not find a date when that map was made, maybe you can but the GPS info is on it and it is clearly marked where the burns were made—Who made the map also? I always dated and wrote my name to maps I made when in the military. Were those erased or covered in that document.

      This report is a grants report and states these were 2006-2007, and makes me wonder if they were not following through again according to the map of the ealier burn?

      Your video listed is of the Peoples Valley road into that community. I am not familiar much with what went on there, nor of that area. Leonard Hunter worked on that burn out and seems it was not so successful either.

      Reply

      • Sonny… just letting you know I’ve seen this message, and I have received the photos you have taken/sent.

        You are right… we are talking about two DIFFERENT ‘short rock walls’.

        Give me a little time to GPS stamp the photos you just sent and we will get this figured out.

        Also… see a new parent comment above which is also responding to what’s in this message… including the Bulldozer Work Orders obtained from Arizona Forestry via FOIA request(s).

        Reply

  113. Okay.
    What are the “missing” elements to the Yarnell fire?

    Are the missing elements feeling safe about now and ,about the missing elements, did it know strongly people needed to move forward and the need to “forget” such a tragic weekend…have the missing elements taken full comfort in the thought no one has looked at THE MISSING ELEMENTS? Are we to focus backwards or “back at words?”

    All this brings up a heaviness and it was when a dvd was given to me to view called “Legend Killers” and in watching it I contacted some folks because its weird this dvd speaking about 1985 mysterious rumor on Clown Killer…I may carry clues that I repressed and suppressed for so LONG that may keep a murderer soon to be released from prison from getting out but if anyone reading this site that is an investigator for cold cases- guide me to Metro Phoenix/Downtown Phoenix/Chris town Phoenix/Grand Phoenix/Glendale/Van Buren area cold cases please. The dvd triggered strong memories. I reckon this fire and my need to keep sharing to ALL who were on the fire from firefighter community to homeowners to ANYONE there HOW important your account and photos and videos mean because I can try & help in cold cases from 1972-1991 but how much better it would of been had I did it right away yet as a kid and seeing what I did the deepest “fear” set in and compartmentalizing set in. Yet now I know that I am seeing things clear as day as it happen yesterday that maybe I won’t be able to give sources or such yet I do know what I am seeing will offer clues to lead to such answers and that brings me to the parallel to this fire and HOW IMPORTANT it is for people not to think I faced a loss of people, places and things and I DO NOT even mind if you are an EX girlfriend or wife or whatever and were not even on the fire—even an ex GMHS—ANYONE—reach out if not to someone so they can help you. I am going to finally reach out to figure out how I can help on awful things seen in my life and maybe let go of the darkest fear I have of becoming the next murder once this person is released. Maybe the right person can help piece the cold case puzzles by me spending time with them. I have zero trust not in the YCSO organization but some who are employed there so again it would have to be someone who is a detective focused to 1972-1991 time spots to above areas for me to feel a comfort to allow my mind to stop repressing and suppressing…I always felt keep it locked inside and live my cookie cutter subdivision life with my leave it to beaver lifestyle I married into yet always it has subconsciously haunted me here and there but for the most part I was able to “block” it out and just go on and I think the MISSING ELEMENTS of the YHF are going through the same process but if I did anything from this fire I think Sonny asking me to take photos helped tell a piece of that weekend but if I never spoke my account on the fire as I have … if you omit my verbal and online accounts just the photos and videos alone help to properly assess the fire and HOMEOWNERS and ANYONE who went to Yarnell to see the fire that feels if they finally open up this long after they will question why…disregard the judgments and ____ just do it____!!!! I know the heaviness the missing elements are facing and as well their careers too. Yet nineteen men died and I just cannot imagine how investigators failed to ask the questions and look in the areas needed. It almost seems like the investigations are a narrative in themselves versus a pure investigation and not much on the human factors except if you log on to the pc and type in w w w. investigative media. c o m where there you will see LIFE and HUMAN FACTORS. What Marti Reed did for me private is something I have done thousands of times throughout my life for others and yet I know she did it from the human heart. This is a wonderful place to discuss and share and vent and disagree and guess what—it is FREE and much freedom in it too. We all have been judged quite harshly for our candidness and that’s okay. SILENCE is not needed when it comes to the YHF. As the great writer Maya Angelou once said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” SPEAK UP missing elements!!!!

    Reply

    • Joy, you are spot on regarding the compartmentalizing.

      When my brother fell 350 feet to his death, I (being only 13 years old at the time) told the world and myself that it didn’t really matter because we hated each other, anyway.

      In order to do that, for the next fifteen years, I had to forget my entire childhood.

      It wasn’t until I was in a chaplaincy training program at Boston State Hospital that my supervisor discovered that I had an “un-grieved un-spoken death” in my past. He made me spent the next two weeks talking about, and re-membering, my brother. And, thus, re-membering my childhood, which I had carefully packaged away in a closed and locked compartment inside my mind.

      That is exactly what people are being expected to do regarding the Yarnell Hill Wildire and the nineteen awesome young men that it devoured.

      Reply

  114. Reply to Gary Olson post on June 9, 2015 at 7:44 pm

    >> Gary Olson said…
    >>
    >> Well it sounds like we can narrow our focus on the ATV issue.
    >>
    >> Apparently a replacement was purchased with an S number and was waiting to be
    >> picked up at the dealership and put into service by the GMIHC.

    Just curious… WHERE did you get that from?

    Someone who has access to the ‘S’ numbers issued on the Halstead fire and might have been able to look up the ‘resolution’ of that requisition / purchase order?

    Not asking you to ‘name sources’ you’re not comfortable talking about.

    Just wondering how we can be sure it really was just sitting there at some ‘dealership’ waiting to be put into service.

    Reply

    • I’m as sure as I can be without having seen it sitting there with my own eyes. One thing that has changed me, is that I feel like I have gotten to know Eric Marsh, at least a little bit over the past 2 years.

      I think their new ATV even sat at the dealership for some time waiting to be picked up. I have my doubts Eric Marsh ever wanted it in the first place or really used it. I think Eric March was in extraordinarily good physical condition even for a hotshot and especially for a hotshot at his age. I think Eric Marsh like to pushed himself and others physically to prove something to himself and others and just because he thought that is what hotshots should do…which is basically agrees with what I thought.

      It’s just that I was more like a coiled steel spring, I may not have looked like I was in shape, but I was always just waiting to spring into action and surprise people. It’s not that I was lazy, I just liked to conserve my energy for the really important things, hence my guidelines never to lose altitude on a slope if I didn’t have to, because I was just going to have to hike back up there again and again…repeat, regardless of what I wanted.

      Eric liked to expend his all day long for any and all reasons. I would have been cruising up and down that slope in style on the back of my new ATV and Eric would have thought I was just another big pussy (non-gender specific).

      Eric saw that ATV at the fire department, he just didn’t want anyone to think he was a big pussy (non-gender specific) by asking to use it or be seen on it. Eric and I both struggled against our personal demons, we just did it in different ways, but I think he and I could have been friends. Jesse Steed on the other hand, remains a complete mystery to me and I don’t feel like I know him at all. Those are just some of my thoughts, take them for whatever they may be worth to you.

      Reply

      • Oh…and I got it from somebody through an email who is behind the big red wall they built in Prescott to keep all of us busybodies out of their business. This person felt sorry for us floundering around yesterday like we were a big school of tuna.

        But it sounded accurate to me, if it turns out not to be true, that is on me, but I believe it. If you don’t, than I certainly encourage you to look for the answer, in fact, maybe you should continue to look for the answer just to see if you get a different one for the heck of it.

        Reply

        • Thank you, Gary.

          That’s another amazing “cut to the chase” from you regarding the possibility that Eric Marsh really didn’t even LIKE the idea of Granite Mountain having to deal with ( or use ) an ATV in the field.

          That same thought was forming in my own head when trying to contemplate why the ATV that burned up in the Halstead fire wasn’t even replaced by even the Doce fire. Maybe the delay was intentional.

          You are dead right about him being a PURIST… and might have even RESENTED every using an ATV in the first place.

          He really DID possess that exact kind of “pure drop” Hotshot mentality that would actually FROWN on using mechanized transport.

          As we established down below… he really was a “Why ride when you can walk… Why walk when you can run” sort of A-type personality… and a perfectionist to boot. His own personnel file(s) and his struggles with having to learn to not start yelling at everyone and anyone who wasn’t living up to his expectations proves that.

          I will continue to look into this.

          Not because I don’t trust your information… but because if we’ve learned anything at all while studying this entire incident… is that there are often MULTIPLE answers to the same question, sometimes.

          I do truly believe that the lack of an ATV like Granite Mountain’s counterpart Blue Ridge had available to them on that day, in that terrain, on that fire… was a “contributing” factor ( but not directly causal ) to what happened later that afternoon… and for that reason alone all the details about WHY they lacked the same capability their counterpart Type 1 IHC had remains important.

          Here’s something to consider…

          If Blue Ridge was the Type 1 IHC with the only “QUAD” that day… then why weren’t THEY given the work assignment that was TWO MILES AWAY from the designated Safety Zone and the QUAD-LESS Type 1 outfit kept closer to town?

          Seems like that would have made more sense just from a pure tactical perspective.

          Reply

          • Yes, that is what I think, but I would like someone to correct me if I am wrong. I want to get to know Eric Marsh better. I can relate to him, whatever his faults may have been. I think he was a complicated man.

            And of course you should continue to look into everything. The person who reached out to me did not see it with their own eyes at the dealership, that is just what the common information was.

            Reply

          • Well…I would like to hear from Bob on this, as I said, I never went highter than sector boss rated and that is only one level up from crew boss, I think they call it strike team leader today and that was even because I was required to do at least that much, but I never put myself in a position to do the job. Bob did a lot more.

            But if you asking me, I will give it a shot. I don’t think anybody on the fire team was really thinking about the town one way or the other since the fire was burning in the opposite direction until it was too late. All they were thinking about was anchoring the fire on the south and flanking it on the west and east flanks to stop the lateral spread while they looked for opportunites, a change in the weather, lower temps higher RH’s, less wind, reduced fuel loads, maybe Peeples Valley, or some the other large open spaces to the north where they could slow it down and hook the head to pinch it off, complete the control lines and burn them out and then mop that baby up and finally call it out.

            The actual situation on the ground changed so fast and the fire behavior was so extreme, the linear thinking of the fire team was never able to catch up, much less get in front of an extremely dynamic and exponentially growing threat.

            See Dr. Ted Putnam, THE COLLAPSE OF DECISIONMAKING AND ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE ON STORM KING MOUNTAIN

            “Studies also show that our linear thinking tends to underestimate hazards, particularly if the hazard is increasing at a logarithmic or exponential rate as can happen on the fireline. An example would be estimating rates of fire spread. A computer would give the better decision in a heartbeat. People would tend to underestimate the rate of spread and have difficulty deciding on an appropriate course of action. And so it is important to understand the limits of how we process information and common types of errors that can occur.”

            Reply

            • Oh…and one more thing. Even though you didn’t ask, I will share with you where I am at right now regarding why the GMIHC died.

              I think Eric Marsh had the same problem the fire team did, and making a long story short, I don’t think his linear thinking could catch up with the exponentially exploding threat either.

              “Studies also show that our linear thinking tends to underestimate hazards, particularly if the hazard is increasing at a logarithmic or exponential rate as can happen on the fireline. An example would be estimating rates of fire spread. A computer would give the better decision in a heartbeat. People would tend to underestimate the rate of spread and have difficulty deciding on an appropriate course of action. And so it is important to understand the limits of how we process information and common types of errors that can occur.”

              And the only person who could have changed Eric Marsh’s decision with the corresponding order to his crew was Jesse Steed. And Captain Steed let his Marine Corp training, his hotshot orientation and his personal ambitions override his serious doubts they could beat the fire front.

              But in the end, he was Jesse Steed…he was built like a Greek God and as physically fit as a rock hard Marine and HE had been physically conditioning the GMIHC. In the end he called Marsh back on their crew net;

              “Marsh….Steed…”Fuck it, we can make it…meet you at the ranch….Steed”

              And the rest is wildland firefighting history that broke our hearts.

              Reply

              • You forgot the TAG.

                OOO-RAH!!!

                Actually… I’m not sure that’s fair to Jesse.

                Yes… he seemed liked one of those ex-Marines that just simply couldn’t quite adjust to a ‘real’ job and still longed for that “brotherhood” thing…

                …but all the BIOS printed so far indicate he was also a kind, caring and concerned man.

                In the MacKenzie video, where we hear him speaking not long before his life would end… I’m not hearing someone all “amped up” about anything.

                It really does look like ( and sound like ) he would have been perfectly content to just sit there on that rock with his hands on his knees and “watch the show” that was developing right out there in front of their eyes.

                As you said down below.

                At that moment… in that video… I’m seeing a man sitting on a rock with his hands on his knees who truly would “rather sit than stand”.

                That’s why it is really is so important to hear EVERYTHING that Brendan McDonough might know.

                Was there REALLY an argument?

                Did Captain Jesse Steed… even with all his own beliefs in his own physical prowess… instinctively know that he was being asked to ask his MEN to do something they might not be able to pull off… and he DID speak up about that?

                Reply

                • Well…actually as usual we lose a lot communicating in this format. When I hear Jesse’s voice in my head, his tone is solemn, resigned and not enthusiastic with an Ooh Rah!

                  He made his objections known to his commander and voiced his concerns, I was making a long story short. I picked up with the story after the argument when all of Steed’s concerns were out and Marsh rejected them.

                  I believe there had been a long brewing personality conflict between Marsh and Steed and Marsh pushed his option to prove a point with Steed and give him a little head humping to put him in his place because Marsh had been off with his injury and Steed had been running the crew, which threatened Marsh.

                  I do not want to be unfair to Steed at all. The only reason I would assign any blame to him ever…is because he was technically the crew boss of the GMIHC and it was his job to stand up to the overenthusiastic overhead to protect his crew from “Death From Above”, which by the way, I had never heard before and I thought I had heard the all of them by now.

                  I personally want to give Steed a pass, but if I did, I wouldn’t be able to respect myself and neither would anyone else because I took the chicken shit way out of a touch call.

                  So…

                  Reply

                    • Copy.

                      I’m still not sure enough has been said about the strange ‘dynamic’ that was actually going down out there that day… with the newly-back-on-duty Eric Marsh starting the day as SUPT but then becoming DIVSA yet still ( at times ) seeming to jump in ahead of Steed on the radio when the calls were being directed to GM and not DIVSA.

                      Couple that with the personnel files where we learn that Willis now had Marsh TOTALLY under-the-microscope and had chomped Marsh a new one for going over his head to Prescott Human Resources over the benefits thing… and that Marsh was now in ‘phase-out’ mode and SUPPOSED to be letting ‘Jesse’ start running GM…

                      …and boy howdy… you have a WEIRD dynamic going on between those two men ( Marsh and Steed ) on June 30, 2013.

                    • Whoops, I guess this should have been here.

                      Bingo, that is a good summary of what I think is the long story of why I think the GMIHC died. And all of the casual factors will be based on human factors and most or all of the contributing factors will be based on everything else, the fire, the fire team, Arizona State Forestry, the Prescott Fire Dept. etc.

              • Bingo, that is a good summary of what I think is the long story of why I think the GMIHC died. And all of the casual factors will be based on human factors and most or all of the contributing factors will be based on everything else, the fire, the fire team, Arizona State Forestry, the Prescott Fire Dept. etc.

                Reply

                • That purity well put every thing in its place.

                  And Yes the Team had a Bad Plan that just kept getting worse although they did start notifying the residents to evacuate at 1300 (1:00 PM) They seemed to have no real emergency plan till all went to hell at 1500./1530.

                  A Fire close enough to be a threat should start evacuation 12 Hours ahead of the fire. The IC should have made that call at 0600 that morning during the briefing.

                  As you said I do not think they were thinking far enough ahead to see the Towns being threatened other than Peoples Valley. They may have made there entire plan biased on what the Fire did Saturday Night it was burning North. The Storm cell and predicted winds changed the whole dynamics of the Fire and they were caught behind the power curve. You have to plan for the expected and the unexpected.

                  The Fatal mistake of most plans is forgetting– the what if– the unexpected event that is not considered
                  The things that cause those events are right there in front of you. The normal weather pattern for that time of year.
                  Forecasted Thunder Storms, local weather patterns, Drought, Lack of difensiable space around the Towns and structures. The same things that GM failed to recognize when they entered a unburned field of Brush in a canyon in the hottest burn period of the day with predicted wind changes.

                  The State and those in charge need and deserve to be sued what a Cluster F***.

                  Reply

          • Most likely because the BR crew arrived much later than requested and GM was the first crew, arriving at the requested time. Probably to simple of an answer, but that’s what I think.

            Reply

            • Sorry, this ended up in the wrong place but its the answer to WTKTT question on why BR didn’t get the assignment that GM did.

              Most likely because the BR crew arrived much later than requested and GM was the first crew, arriving at the requested time. Probably to simple of an answer, but that’s what I think.

              Reply

          • I think Gary is honed in on Marsh on that point. I think he would have preferred a mountain bike to an ATV. An ATV parked is another thing to be tied to and to worry about and yes it would be good to scout on the two track but it would have been absolutely useless anywhere off that in most places in that terrain. Where I saw Marsh hopping those large boulders and through that brush even a burro would have been stymied. No short cuts with ATV’s in that terrain and Marsh was definitely in shape–likely could have beat the time of an ATV in a lot of those places.

            Reply

  115. Well it sounds like we can narrow our focus on the ATV issue. Apparently a replacement was purchased with an S number and was waiting to be picked up at the dealership and put into service by the GMIHC.

    Reply

    • Then that, alone, also belongs in the Shakespearean level ‘irony’ category associated with this entire ‘story’.

      I still believe that given the actual location, the topography, the terrain and the overgrown two-tracks in the area where this fire was to be fought… 4 wheel ATV/UTV equipment was ESSENTIAL.

      The Blue Ridge Hotshots themselves proved that.

      Matter of fact… the ONLY thing that allowed ANY of the Blue Ridge Hotshots ( Brian Frisby, Trueheart Brown and Cory Ball ) to make any positive contributions on the south end of that fire that day was the fact that they had their own Polaris Ranger UTV and that ( later on ) Cory Ball was able to BORROW that other shiny-new ATV from the Yarnell Fire Department.

      The Blue Ridge Hothshot CREW, itself, was USELESS that day and basically did nothing at all.

      I believe that the moment these Type 1 Crews were ordered the night before… it should have been a STIPULATION on the order that these Crews show up with at least 1 ATV in order to be able to scout and navigate that area successfully.

      In other words… if Granite Mountain couldn’t meet that criteria they should have gone with another crew who COULD.

      OR… it should have been a GIVEN that the moment Granite Mountain arrived that extra unused ATV sitting in the Yarnell Fire Station should have been ASSIGNED to them.

      OR… they should have just rented one from somewhere to use for the day.

      I mean… think about this scenario… because I have thought about it a LOT after hours and hours of looking closely at this entire area in Google Earth.

      If Eric Marsh ( DIVSA and chief SCOUT for Granite Mountain ) had the same capability that his counterpart Brian Frisby had had all day that day… then even later in the day when the winds shifted and they had wasted too much time to “go back the way they came”… Eric Marsh would have almost been FORCED to not even consider that “bushwhack”.

      There he would have been up on that ridge with a 4 wheeler… and his focus then would have been finding a way to get both the Crew AND the 4 wheeler down to the Boulder Springs Ranch.

      His ONLY option there would have been to fully scout and investigate that “alternate escape route”… and ( because he was mobile ) he WOULD have discovered quickly that it WAS possible to just stay on that upper trail, take the bend to the EAST, and then make it all the way down to that ‘intersection’ where it would have been just as easy to ‘exit’ the area via the Candy Cane Lane area OR do slight bushwhack over to the Boulder Springs Ranch.

      If Marsh had had an ATV up on that ride… you can be pretty sure he wouldn’t want to have become known as the ‘ATV Killer’ and had that ATV get burned up as well.

      He most likely WOULD have been including the preservation of the vehicle in his own ‘evacuation scenarios’… and it most likely WOULD have changed his own decision making.

      Maybe I’m kidding myself. I don’t know.

      Maybe Marsh felt so strongly about getting that crew back to town like the cavalry riding in on a charge that he would have just left the damn thing up in the black and still have done exactly what he did from the moment he realized they couldn’t go back down the way they came up.

      But maybe not.

      So YES… I am keeping the LACK of an ATV ( like his Type 1 counterpart Brian Frisby had all day ) in the ‘contributing factor’ category ( but not in the direct ‘causal factor’ category ).

      And also YES.. I can hear other WFF groaning and saying it’s ABSURD to think that an elite Type 1 Hotshot Crew should, in any way, ever be DEPENDENT on having an ATV or UTV in order to do their job… but I believe Yarnell was a special case.

      Even Russ Shumate, in his ADOSH interview(s), said that the only real mechanized access to the active parts of the fire would require ( his word ) “QUADS”… yet when the fire got away from him Saturday afternoon and he started placing all of his resource orders for Sunday… he was NOT specifying that resources arriving the next day have that QUAD capbility.

      He should have.

      If he had… Granite Mountain would have never been able to fulfill the resource order… and we wouldn’t even be here having this conversation.

      Reply

      • TYPO up above. I meant to say “ridge” and not “ride”.

        Paragraph(s) above should have read like this…

        If Marsh had had an ATV up on that RIDGE… you can be pretty sure he wouldn’t want to have become known as the ‘ATV Killer’ and had that ATV get burned up as well.

        He most likely WOULD have been including the preservation of the vehicle in his own ‘evacuation scenarios’… and it most likely WOULD have changed his own decision making.

        Reply

      • WTK said
        Eric Marsh would have almost been FORCED to not even consider that “bushwhack”.

        What evidence exists that Eric Marsh took the same route as GMIHC?

        Reply

        • Copy.

          Good question.

          The first thing I think of is the pink tape Sonny found at the “descent point.”

          But from there — who knows?

          We still don’t know Eric’s whereabouts in any of this.

          And, all things considered, I’m not convinced we ever will.

          Reply

          • And now I can finally, I think, say:

            Thank you, JD, for fixing the problem I was having with your software automatically attaching a “deleted website” to my postings. Which was really really really really bugging me.

            Reply

        • Reply to calvin post on June 10, 2015 at 4:00 am

          >> calvin said…
          >>
          >> What evidence exists that Eric Marsh took the same route as GMIHC?

          Well… until we (might) hear from Brendan McDonough about what else he heard… and what the (alleged) argument was all about… there is really no DIRECT evidence that ‘argument’ itself was about taking that ‘shortcut’ through the canyon.

          All we really have is INDIRECT evidence.

          Good to hear from you, calvin… and an interesting theory.

          That Eric Marsh himself stuck to the ‘alternate escape route’, arrived near the Boulder Springs Rancn, then gave the ‘go ahead’ ( or possibly ORDERED ) Steed to ‘come down’…

          …but then Captain Jesse Steed himself somehow decided ( on his own ) to take himself and the other 17 down into the canyon instead of sticking to the ‘alternate escape route’?

          Is that what you are suggesting might have gone down?

          Off the top of my head… the ‘show stopper’ to that theory might be how in the heck Marsh then ended up back at the actual deployment site to die along with the others.

          If he hadn’t, himself, been the one ‘marking the route’ through the canyon and ( perhaps ) tying ‘pink ribbons’ all along the route he was marking ( which is what he ALWAYS did when ‘advancing’ the men )… then it would have been a miracle he even FOUND them out there when he decided to run out there after them…whenever he actually decided to do that.

          Brendan needs to be deposed.

          That has always been needed.

          Reply

          • Good Question along with others we have been waiting for the information.
            Two factors that stand out are the 1 piece of melted pink tape at the top of the canyon.
            Also the Escape route statements that would indicate some specific route.
            Nothing but pieces of a puzzle.

            Add the info on the Argument at the drop off into the Canyon and Marsh heading back to tie in with the crew using the Canyon route as he must have known the crew was headed down that canyon.
            ALL STILL SPECULATION NOT YET PROVEN. Just more pieces of the puzzle information that needs more clarification.

            Do I believe Marsh was to the ranch and back to the Crew—-YES
            Do I believe there was a argument between Marsh and Steed —-YES
            Do I believe Marsh ordered the Crew to the Ranch —YES
            Do I believe that Marsh flagged the Route—YES
            Do I believe that McDonough can prove every thing above—-YES

            I have had my evidence from reliable sources for over 6 months and I am still standing by those things I have been told which seem to bare fruit from the Statements that were released from the Prescott City Attorney. So far my sources have not been wrong .

            Marsh Scouted to the Ranch which means he flagged a route to follow or return on. A Division Boss or a Crew Leader will always flag a route for Fire line or travel, if it dose not work out he will walk back and pull the flagging.
            I am standing on that information based on my years fighting Fire it is SOP.
            Until proven wrong that is where I am at— You are all free to disagree with me.

            Reply

            • Not going to disagree with you at all.

              My YES list matches yours.

              But calvin is right to REMIND us about how much we still do NOT KNOW about how it all really went down.

              I think it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that Eric Marsh stayed on the established ‘alternate escape route’ trail for HIS descent… and then ( somehow ) it was Jesse Steed himself who thought of taking himself and the crew down via the ‘shortcut’ through the canyon…

              …but I suppose it is POSSIBLE.

              Reply

            • Bob–Something besides the ATV’s comes to mind and this is after realizing that there was a burn out ordered above on that Shrine road. I wondered if you or Marti or WTKTT or others concerned saw the video where drip torches were being used along the Shrine Road and just above the Shrine in the video–that video was removed from U-Tube and for what reason? The fighter that put it on would know. The timing is of utmost importance because it was done when the extreme winds had taken hold –you can see those trees bending with it. Now was it the same time the dozer line was being made toward the Helms–that would be also the Glen Ilah Dozer line. I suspect if they had been ordered at the Shrine then they would have also been drip firing the dozer line and those winds would have been heading away from Glen Isla at the time. This of course would have protected Glen Isla and yes I know exactly where that dozer line would be and if they did fire that line and the time is know that would have cut the GMHS crew off from getting to the ranch because that fire line would have been just a quarter mile below the ranch with winds driving the fire toward Peeples Valley to the North– A shift in the wind would have then driven it directly west and up only a quarter mile to the thick brush in the bowl. I say this because it also turned back toward Candy Lane which is the farthermost street on the west side of Glen Isla. We have a cabin just a block east of Candy Lane. I say this also because it took all the west Side of the ridge and we would have been toast saved by only ten or 11 minutes. Had we rested just ten more minutes our escape route like the GMHS would have been cut off while by my good estimates we should have had an hour on that fire when we came out–yet people were escaping Glen Isla down Foot Hills drive when we arrived late afternoon and where we had parked our car that morning at around 3:30 am. I could not believe how fast that fire had arrived nearly to our car– but now with much learning from firemen of your ilk it seems to me that there was a burnout right along that dozer line and that might be the answer to why the dozer line and dozer operator remains hidden information. What is your input on that idea?

              Reply

              • Sonny I would first have to say at that point in time it would be inconceivable that any one would have ordered a back fire with the time of day the burning conditions the changing winds it is just not feasible, Safe or controllable. For a Back Fire to work you have to have the weather with you and be able to control the situation or you put every one at risk.

                I have never seen the video you speak of— but the Fire itself was increasing at a high rate of spread as the winds took over winds of even 20 MPH can really drive a fire and create a lot of Spotting that also blows up and pulls all the fires together it is a awesome site fire spreading in all directions as fast as a spark hits the ground.

                Every body was bailing out of the area you speak of It would be hard for me to believe any one had time to light backfires at that point they would have trapped them selves without a doubt.

                I would have to see the video to give you any real help here.

                My best guess is no one would have Backfired at that time with the wind.

                Reply

        • calvin says

          June 10, 2015 at 4:00 am

          WTK said
          Eric Marsh would have almost been FORCED to not even consider that “bushwhack”.

          What evidence exists that Eric Marsh took the same route as GMIHC?
          reply from Joy:

          The pink ribbon could of been tied but that does not mean he did not tie pink ribbons in other areas as well and they were burned up so a pink ribbon is just a “clue” but not concrete evidence and like I told Holly and Gail and Fernanda I strongly feel investigators should look in the restricted areas of the wash that leads from the bottom the old grader road the base to the Weavers and swings around the hill to the Helms. That areas need heavy looking at it.

          Reply

          • Good point, Joy. There WERE ‘other trails’ out there that COULD have gotten someone from the anchor point area out on that ridge BACK to the Boulder Springs Ranch area even WITHOUT having to stick with that two-track up on the high ridge.

            Indeed… that’s the way you and Sonny got OUT there and up to where the fire was that morning.

            You did NOT ‘ascend’ through the box canyon OR up along what would become known as the “alternate escape route”.

            You ‘cut around’ the north side of the box canyon, picked up the trail system that was then just beyond that area and then you ‘tied into’ that two-track leading up from the old-grader and on up to the ridge.

            I believe it WAS considered that Marsh might have ‘descended’ that same way you and Sonny went up that morning… but no evidence was found that would prove that one way or the other.

            Eric Marsh certainly had TIME to do that…and ‘descend’ in roughly exactly the same way that you and Sonny ‘ascended’ that day…

            …but then that doesn’t account for any of the pink ribbon that was found where Sonny found it over in that other ‘Descent Point’ area.

            Reply

      • From the Prescott Daily Courier:

        3/13/2015 6:03:00 AM

        4-wheel lifesavers

        Wildfire Academy ATV class helps firefighters get training, certification

        http://dcourier.com/Main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=142890

        “PRESCOTT – All-terrain vehicles and utility task vehicles can be invaluable tools during wildfires, from hauling in supplies on trails to rescuing an injured firefighter.

        But firefighters can’t use a single-seat ATV or two- to four-seat UTV during wildfires without first getting training that’s certified on their red cards.

        And sometimes that training is hard for rural volunteer firefighters to find nearby.

        The Arizona Wildfire and Incident Management Academy is meeting that need this year by adding new training for ATV and UTV (aka recreational off-highway vehicle) classes.

        Cameron Hendrix pitched the idea for a class to Wildfire Academy Coordinator Tony Sciacca. Hendrix is a captain with the Golder Ranch Fire District near Tucson.

        “These machines are just lifesavers in (fires), and shuttling equipment and supplies,” Hendrix said. “On the other hand, they can be a hazard.

        “This class gives people solid footing.””

        Reply

        • There’s a lot of video associated with this ATV/UTV class that was part of the most recent Arizona Wildfire Academy… and it’s interesting to NOTE that during the classes themselves… EVERYONE has on both the required GLOVES and HELMETS…

          …but at NO TIME in Yarnell were Brian Frisby and Trueheart Brown meeting these same NIFC requirements while operating their Polaris Ranger.

          Reply

          • Even the STILL PHOTOGRAPH that accompanies the article above shows all the NIFC required ‘gear’ in place. GLOVES and HELMETS.

            No such thing in Yarnell on June 30, 2013.

            Pretty much for ANYONE who was operating ATV / UTV.

            Ball caps OK and GLOVES totally optional.

            Reply

      • Looking at how Marsh might have viewed the use of an ATV and whether it could be essential. Absolutely so–For instance, ATV’s could have been to that fire in less than 30 minutes maybe even 15 from where you enter the dirt track off Sesame Street. Walking that same track would take over an hour depending on the equipment you had on your back. If those people are telling the truth–I have no reason to doubt them at this point–and they have those photos of two yellow and white ATV’s with one person getting off with a tool in his hand at the time of the fire then someone was actually there at the fire when it started on Friday, Is this ever a confusing investigation where every stone should have been overturned, yet the narrative goes on. Joy is right–It is time for more folks who have information and photos to start adding their evidence to this. The most that can happen to you is something like what happened to Joy–some will try to get you to shut up and quit rocking the boat in your search or help in finding out the true story of how 19 men were enticed into loosing their lives. The loved ones need and deserve your help for closure.

        Reply

    • And on a side note, it sounds like the way I learned to do a fire budget is no longer applicable. Apparently getting an S number these days is a very difficult task, so I guess the free wheeling days are over and Bob is right, it would be very hard if not impossible to play fast and loose with the S number system.

      We can probably thank our unfunded war in Iraq for that change as we can most of the other draconian federal budget cuts. FYI, it is pretty hard to resolve the federal budget crisis when you only hack on about 5% of the overall budget. Just sayin.’

      The wildland fire services have to be adequately funded and staffed or it’s going to get ugly. Actually it’s probably going to get ugly no matter what, so I guess it’s going to be a question of just how ugly it can get and what our response will be.

      Reply

    • WTKTT,

      I have been thinking about the GMIHC ATV situation this evening and I do think I know how bad you feel for them and how frustrated you are that you have looked at Google Earth maps for months and you have advocated on their behalf to find out who helped kill them on the Yarnell Hill Fire by depriving them of their essential equipment, especially for that particular fire. And tonight you were told it was them…they did it to themselves. That is a bad deal and it can’t be sugarcoated.

      I am just not mad anymore. I have gone through enough of the grieving steps that I am now at what comes after anger, which in my case, is resignation and sadness. And I’m afraid it is only going to get worse the more we examine the Human Factors aspect of this tragedy.

      I fully support your efforts as well of those of Marti and Bob and others to leave no stone unturned on that fire. And finding out exactly what became of their replacement ATV is a big deal and quite an accomplishment, especially given the cone of silence that has been built around the GMIHC. It’s just not good news for those who want to protect the reputation of Eric Marsh.

      And I think I understand how you feel…if they would have only picked up that ATV and put it into service prior to being dispatched to the Yarnell Hill Fire, that fire would be a footnote in the history of Yarnell and not much more. And that is truly tragic. At least I know that is how I feel.

      Reply

      • Gary, you wrote:

        “I am just not mad anymore. I have gone through enough of the grieving steps that I am now at what comes after anger, which in my case, is resignation and sadness. And I’m afraid it is only going to get worse the more we examine the Human Factors aspect of this tragedy.”

        Having been through this journey with you, and read you, and understood you, and “watched” you, I have to say that I understand what you are saying and yet, I AM still mad.

        If I were just resigned and sad, I wouldn’t still be writing stuff here and googling stuff (which I did in the wee hours of this morning while hunting for info regarding the Halstead Fire.)

        And what I’m still MAD about is how we still don’t know SO MUCH. And how that “SO MUCH” is being actively WITHELD from us. And how that “SO MUCH” pertains, imho, to the overall MISMANAGEMENT of this fire.

        In this day of, yes, as you have said, THE INTERNET and SOCIAL MEDIA being a game-changer, and, as WTKTT has said, if WE, the world, are asked to mourn this tragedy, we are also going to relentlessly want to UNDERSTAND it (for whatever our personal and collective reasons)…….

        ……… the STILL SAT-UPON evidence really makes me MAD.

        I STILL don’t know (because of the Gamble video), almost two years later, whether or not GM was “pushed” or “pulled” or whatever by somebody else besides Eric Marsh to “hurry up” and get to Yarnell.

        HELLO?????????????????

        I STILL don’t know why in the world everybody that was making authoritative decisions on that fire didn’t, seemingly, pay ANY ATTENTION to the weather forecasts that made that reversal inevitable and predictable (in spite of what a certain Law Professor is trying to convince the world of), and, in no uncertain terms, ORDER everybody that was in the way of that (including, but not limited to, the Granite Mountain Hotshots) to pull off that fire and head to safety after the 2 PM weather notice. I’ve seen stuff like that done on other fires, Why not Yarnell?????

        And that’s just the beginning, and probably most important, of my list of unanswered questions that I am MAD about being still, two years later, unanswered. I could go on and on and on.

        What I’m still MAD about, I guess one could say, is that, as I have said, and have been quoted as saying, ALL ALONG………..

        ……………is that this fire is still BURNING, two years later, and it is still, essentially, not only burning MONEY, but it is also still burning PEOPLE.

        NOBODY that can do it has been willing to step up to the plate and do what it takes to contain, control, and, essentially, put this Yarnell Hill Wildfire out. Two years later and counting.

        Is there a connection? I can’t imagine there’s not. And that’s what I’m MAD about.

        Reply

        • I hear ya, Marti. It is still ASTOUNDING what is NOT KNOWN and that, in and of itself, has already become the legacy of this incident and its aftermath.

          Indeed… as we come up on the SECOND anniversary… I think what is still NOT KNOWN… and WHY these things are still not known is going to be the primary ‘story’ in the media.

          If it is NOT… then the media itself simply isn’t even paying attention.

          But what strikes me most of all is what lies BEHIND this ‘story’ of why so much is still NOT KNOWN.

          It’s the ‘elephant in the room’… and it’s name is FEAR.

          Since the very moment of the tragedy it seems like FEAR has been the primary force that would shape the entire aftermath and the investigations.

          EVERYWHERE you look in the aftermath of this incident… we have seen FEAR take ahold of people.

          The FEAR to speak freely.
          The FEAR to confront ( or even seek ) the TRUTH.
          The FEAR to admit mistakes.
          The FEAR of what the public might think.
          The FEAR of losing a job.
          The FEAR of CHANGE.
          Yada… yada… yada.

          Keyword ( and common denominator ): FEAR.

          And what compounds all this is that all this FEAR is coming from men and women who society constantly asks US to honor as the FEARLESS among us.

          So that is where MY ‘anger’ comes from.

          It comes from being asked to watch people that we are all supposed to honor for their FEARLESSNESS seemingly continually cowering in the shadows and even afraid to talk about what they know.

          It just doesn’t MATCH… never has… and it makes me angry.

          Reply

          • WTKTT Thanks for the answer to why so many stand back from revealing what they rightfully and have the duty to tell. Is it the herd instinct that keeps them mum? Maybe they are afraid to hit the giant on the toe.

            I watched Eric’s wife on a public video screaming in the face of a the radio commentator. She is recorded as saying that the Ashcroft lady who was publicly answering questions did not have to answer who on the city council was causing them trouble. I could see their anger and frustration as to why people continue to want answers, including names of who are the actors in this disaster. But then there are others who have lost their loved ones who are actively attempting to find the truth. Some have lashed out at Donut for his silence–and rightfully so when it comes to investigating the deaths of 19 men. How he escapes prosecution is beyond me. Unless we have gutless prosecutors who are afraid to offend a few who want to hide truth while on the main the loved ones want the truth. It reminds me of a situation a few years back where a marine was killed and his parents were fed a bullshit hero story that was totally a fiction account to make the parents feel good and the Marines OK. When they found out the real truth they went public and all hell broke loose against the people who concocted the lie. People want to know what really happened here, not a SAIR gloss over that does not reveal the real story. Yea, the loved ones will only be satisfied when they know what really happened down to the finest detail!

            Reply

            • Reply to Sonny post on June 10, 2015 at 3:02 pm

              >> Sonny said…
              >>
              >> WTKTT Thanks for the answer to why so many stand
              >> back from revealing what they rightfully and have the
              >> duty to tell. Is it the herd instinct that keeps them mum?
              >>
              >> Maybe they are afraid to hit the giant on the toe.

              I don’t know WHAT everyone is AFRAID of.

              That’s the real mystery.

              All I know is that has been ( and continues to be ) the “elephant in the room” on so many levels…and it’s NAME is FEAR.

              >> Sonny also wrote…
              >>
              >> Some have lashed out at Donut for his silence–and
              >> rightfully so when it comes to investigating the deaths
              >> of 19 men. How he escapes prosecution is beyond me.

              Important point must be made here.

              NO ONE is suggesting that Brendan McDonough should be ‘prosecuted’ BY anyone… FOR anything.

              At the absolute furthest outside chance of there being something… it might only be a charge of “obstructing official State level investigations” ( Both SAIT and ADOSH ) by purposely withholding information.

              But even that would just be only a Class 1 or 2 misdemeanor, with some fines and whatnot.

              Make no mistake, however.

              Some level of this same FEAR component has always been guiding Brendan McDonough’s decision making as well.

              With any luck… when he is finally deposed under oath and he is finally asked WHY he was obviously CHOOSING not to tell investigators everything he knows… maybe we will find out exactly what he, himself, seemed to be so AFRAID of that it would cause him to obstruct those investigations.

              It’s any easy guess, I suppose.

              He was AFRAID he would tarnish the reputation of his “brothers” if he revealed everything he knew.

              If that’s really the (simple) reason… many will accept that.

              But it still proves my point.

              It is ( and continues to be ) various levels of FEAR that have always been controlling and limiting the legitimate investigations and aftermath of this incident and the search for the TRUTH.

              And that FEAR is coming from men and women who society keeps telling us are supposed to be honored as the FEARLESS ones among us.

              It truly is a conundrum.

              Reply

        • Marti,

          I believe I do understand where you are coming from, and I can certainly understand why you are still mad.

          I would however, like you to understand that just because I am not angry anymore, does not mean I care any less, or that I am any less committed to finding out the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, or that I am any less involved in this effort.

          In fact, I am now more involved than I have ever been. Unlike you, WTKTT, Bob and others, I don’t have the skill set or the personality to do the complex research and analysis that you have done that has been so impressive.

          My role has always been to provide background information and general assessments on how the wildland fire culture has, should or does operate, based on my individual experiences, which because of my background is extensive, but far from all inclusive.

          But now I am doing my best to actively pursue the human factors aspect of this tragedy, which based on my experience, past interest and research on all of the other disaster fires that have involved hotshots, and my belief and keen interest in all of the work that Dr.Ted Putnam has done in the area of human factors, has now given me a specific area of this puzzle to try and work on.

          And I do want to emphasize that I do not believe hotshots fatalities are any more important than any other wildland firefighter fatalities, it’s just that I never worked on anything else, so I don’t really know much about how and why they do things. Unlike Bob, I never worked in any overhead positions, I was technically sector boss rated, but I never worked in that position except to get my ticked punched. I was never interested in fighting fire except as a hotshot. I was very proud of the fact that I was a grunt and a ground pounder and I never wanted to be anything else.

          Like smokejumpers for example, who I like to pick on in a joking manner because of the age old rivalry between the two camps. And I am glad the general public is now aware that hotshots exist, except I wish it would have been for a different reason. Hotshots have always existed to some extent because reporters like to stand in fire camp and identify every crew that goes by as hotshots, because they don’t know the difference between the crews and have never taken the time or had the interest to figure it out.

          Although I am still actively involved in following the thread and I did jump in the “what the hell happened to the GMIHC’s replacement ATV and whose fault is it anyway” issue yesterday. And I think I was able along with Bob, to help WTKTT finally get us to where we need to be.

          In other words, I am doing my best to approach this problem as a detached but committed investigator rather than a washed up hotshot who still thinks and acts like a hotshot…just ask my dear wife what it’s like to still be married to a hotshot after 40. Yikes.

          I will however, share with you one thing that makes me feel bad…not angry, bad. And that is the fact that there are so many people in Prescott who are associated with the Prescott Fire Department, the former GMIHC (it’s hard to refer to them in the past tense, but it is incorrect to refer to them in the present tense) and the wildland firefighting culture from all agencies in the Prescott area who have so much information, but have chosen to keep it behind the red wall and inside the cone of silence they have constructed around everything associated with the GMIHC.

          I believe that all of these people have made the conscious and in a few cases the unconscious choice, to deliberately conceal and withhold information from everyone they consider to be an outsider, which is everyone outside of their wagon circle. All of this is an effort to do their best to enable the initial GMIHC-Yarnell Hill Fire story line to pass into wildland firefighter history unchanged as it becomes legend about how gallant men died as hero’s because of a sudden wind shift that was unforeseen, unexpected or had already occurred and through no fault of their own. I did my very best to help them prove this for 18 months, but I was wrong….very wrong.

          And these same people are now only interested in protecting the reputations of the GMIHC and their crew leaders at the expense of helping to figure out the true lessons learned from this tragedy. For which I think they should be ashamed of themselves, because they are not preserving the memory of the GMIHC, they are tarnishing it. And I hope at least some of them change their minds, realize what they are doing is wrong, and come forward to help us figure out the truth.

          As far as how I know the replacement ATV had been purchased, WTKTT and others figured it out in less than one second and you are somewhat naïve. Somebody inside that red walled compound finally felt sorry for us as we floundered around trying to figure it out and emailed me and told me. And if I tell you anything about this person I won’t get any more emails.

          Dozens, or maybe even hundreds of people in the Prescott area wildland firefighting culture know the simple facts about the ATV, and many of them are following this thread. I would like to know how many of them were smirking, laughing, emailing, phone calling, or texting each other with glee as we struggled with what to them must surely have seemed like outlandish theories yesterday.

          I hope all of you enjoyed yourselves at the expense of the truth and helping us, to help other wildland firefighters in the future so maybe they won’t die, at least for the same reasons the GMIHC died. Dare I say that I don’t believe Eric Marsh, Jesse Steed and the others would have wanted it to be this way?

          As I have forcefully stated before on this thread, I think those men were heroes BEFORE they died, not because they died.

          Reply

          • Thank you, Gary.

            Incredibly well said ( all of it ).

            You do have a way of “cutting to the chase”… and I, for one, continue to appreciate it.

            As for “circling the wagons”… of COURSE that is what has been going on ( and will continue to go on ).

            But what just happened proves that underneath it all.. these people are actually HOPING for success here in this forum ( and in other places ).

            There’s always someone ( and sound you just heard from one ) who will “laugh it up” with “the brothers”… and then send an email.

            So also a big “Thank you” to whoever that was.

            To the ‘lurkers’. ( and the ‘laughers’ )…

            News flash.

            It ain’t goin’ away, boys and girls.

            Try and find a way to pull up your big girl/boy shorts and set the record straight… if you can.

            Reply

            • Yes to all of that. And I do hope the person who reached out to me does so again and I hope others follow suite.

              And to back up what WTKTT just said, nothing can be kept a secret if more than one person knows about it, and in this case there are many more than that. So the truth will come out, especially in this day and age of social media, the only thing anyone can control to some extent is to who they give the information they have and when do they do it.

              The fact that the information will come out is a forgone conclusion. The original narrative made a good story for the memorial service and for sound bites from the politicians and men like Darrin Willis, but it was never supported by the facts.

              Just look at what the movie producer or director whatever he was said about the hotshot movie he is going to make. He said something about focusing on the bonds and the friendships of some blue collar guys and NOT ON THE DECSIONS THEY MADE.

              News flash…if this guy knows there is a problem with the original narrative, everyone knows there is a problem with the original narrative. Let’s fix it now. [email protected]

              Reply

            • I’m buried in screen-recording classes right now. but just want to say thank you
              Gary and WTKTT.

              I totally get what you are both saying. Will have more time to write more tomorrow, hopefully.

              I would like to add to what WTKTT has written about the FEAR, is what really makes me MAD is about the HYPOCRISY.

              EVERYBODY has all these campaigns about “Safety First,” .

              Right, sure.

              And I just can’t forget that whole thing the USFS did with that South Canyon memorial video about how “everybody needs to talk” last year about this time.

              Again, right sure.

              Again, I’m typing this on an iPad while screen-recording on my computer while falling asleep.

              Thank you, Gary, for deciding not to let go of this, and seeking more information.

              Thank you, WTKTT, for just being RELENTLESS.

              And YES, no matter what, even those lolling as a result of our mistakes and rabbit holes and whatever, our long and winding and rocky path……

              …..I firmly believe our daily efforts to keep “questioning authority” and trying to create a narrative based on the EVIDENCE will EVENTUALLY bear fruit.

              Namaste

              Reply

          • The thing that needs to be remembered:

            “Esse Quam Videri”

            “To Be, Not to Seem”

            I knew when I wrote about how I’m still MAD, that, just because you had said you weren’t mad, that didn’t mean you didn’t CARE.

            And I really really appreciate what you have written here.

            I’m chuckling to read about the “whomevers” delighting in our “floundering.”

            They think it’s a game.

            Remember, those behind the “red wall”:

            Esse Quam Videri

            Put THAT in your pipes and smoke it.

            Reply

    • OK. I’m getting a little lost here. Reading this in the wee hours when I should be sleeping but rain woke me up.

      Rain in Albuquerque at 4 in the morning in June? Preposterous but true.

      I’m in classes but I have been reading. But, apparently, maybe missing some things.

      And, yes, as I read the start of this convo, the first thing I thought was, why did Cory Ball think to borrow the Yarnell atv/utv (I’m still not certain which one it was) but Eric Marsh didn’t. Or something along those lines.

      (I FINALLY discovered this year that an ATV is a one-person vehicle and a UTV is a multi-person vehicle.)

      But I’m missing the filler here, also.

      How have we gotten to:

      “Apparently a replacement was purchased with an S number and was waiting to be picked up at the dealership and put into service by the GMIHC.”

      That’s the part that I’m missing. It may have been posted downstream but I haven’t found it.

      And yes, more Shakespeare. Whoever actually writes the truly “definitive” book on this fire needs to keep that firmly in mind. Maybe he IS, from somewhere in the Universe, still writing this fire because there’s something he sees that we need to see, also?

      Reply

      • Reply to Marti Reed post on June 10, 2015 at 4:55 am

        >> Marti said…
        >>
        >> And, yes, as I read the start of this convo, the first thing I thought
        >> was, why did Cory Ball think to borrow the Yarnell atv/utv (I’m still
        >> not certain which one it was) but Eric Marsh didn’t. Or something
        >> along those lines.

        We still don’t know WHO actually drove Cory Ball over to the YFD station to get the ATV in that white pickup truck. What we also don’t know is what ‘conversation’ took place that made Ball even AWARE that it was sitting there in that station doing nothing and that it was even an option for him to use it to fulfill that ORDER he just got from SPGS1 Cordes to go scout dozer line near Glen Ilah.

        Ball didn’t have access to the Blue Ridge UTV because at that moment… it was still ‘out there’ doing things like rescuing Brendan McDonough and warning all the FFs in the Youth Camp area to get the hell out.

        AFAWK… Yarnell Chief Koile was also still up at the ICP being ‘medical officer’ in this same timeframe… so somewhere between Cordes ordering Ball to go scout more dozer line and that photograph of him arriving at the YFD to get the ATV… he had some conversation with someone associated with YFD who knew it was there and gave him permission to borrow it.

        Still a total mystery on all those details.

        Cory Ball has never been properly interviewed or deposed.

        >> Marti also said…
        >>
        >> But I’m missing the filler here, also.
        >>
        >> How have we gotten to:
        >>
        >> “Apparently a replacement was purchased with an S number and
        >> was waiting to be picked up at the dealership and put into service
        >> by the GMIHC.”
        >>
        >> That’s the part that I’m missing. It may have been posted downstream
        >> but I haven’t found it.

        You won’t. That declaration sort of came out of nowhere from Gary Olson and HE will have to say how he found that out.

        No reason not to believe him. The ‘S’ number is probably there in some system somewhere and probably has a ‘resolution’ associated with it.

        The only thing Darrell Willis testified to is that they ( He and Granite Mountain organization ) were PROMISED a valid ‘S’ number so they could replace it.

        The ADOSH investigators then ( typically ) didn’t ‘follow up’ with any more questions and they just moved on in the interview without even asking why Granite Mountain didn’t have a new ATV with them in Yarnell.

        Reply

        • Thanks, WTKTT! Now I know I’m not blind or whatever. That helps.

          And, totally yes to this, something I know I have periodically wracked my brain and the evidence about:

          “We still don’t know WHO actually drove Cory Ball over to the YFD station to get the ATV in that white pickup truck. What we also don’t know is what ‘conversation’ took place that made Ball even AWARE that it was sitting there in that station doing nothing and that it was even an option for him to use it to fulfill that ORDER he just got from SPGS1 Cordes to go scout dozer line near Glen Ilah.”

          Reply

          • And, of course, we STILL don’t know what even happened regarding that dozer and its operator before, during, and after that fire overtook Glen Illah.

            Reply

            • Copy that. It is still absolutely unbelievable what we do NOT know about that dozer and its operator. It was the primary tool all day on that south end of the fire and the primary focus for completing whatever plans there even were that day.. including directly related to whatever the men who were going to die that day were doing all day…

              …and we still have no idea why DPS helicopter Ranger 58 was told to be looking for the ‘missing’ operator or whether he really did suffer his own terrifying ordeal out there but managed to survive.

              I’m still chasing a lead on that which appeared in the very first IAP ( Incident Action Plan ) which was ever actually done for Yarnell. It was done Sunday night and appears to mention the NAME of the actual Yavapai County Public Works employee who happened to be there along with that Yavapai County Dozer. He appears to have been a 35 year veteran of the Yavapai County Public Works Department. More on that later.

              Reply

              • **
                ** YAVAPAI COUNTY DOZER OPERATOR?
                **
                ** POSSIBLY REGGIE PASSMORE?

                NOTE: This information is now in PUBLIC documents that have already shown up in the “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” ALJ Hearing file.

                In the documents showing up in the ALJ Hearing File that talk about how an Incident Action Plan that was published should be withdrawn because it had phone numbers… that PUBLISHED IAP says that on July 1, 2013, Paul Musser was assigned resources including a Yavapai County Dozer with a County employee named Reggie Passmore as DOZB.

                The copy of the IAP showing up in the ALJ Hearing file is the first one that was ever done for the Yarnell Hill File and it was prepared on Sunday night, just a few hours after the tragedy.

                There is no NEW order for ANOTHER dozer placed on Sunday night so it is highly likely this Yavapa County Dozer ( and its accompanying operator ) is the SAME one that had been there in Yarnell all day Sunday.

                So could this Yavapai County Public Works DOZER and accompanying employee named ‘Reggie Passsmore’ be the same dozer ( and operator ) that ‘went missing’ Sunday afternoon and was being actively ‘searched for’ by the DPS Ranger 58 helicopter along with Granite Mountain?

                Other PUBLIC online documents show that this ‘Reggie Passmore’ dozer operator was a 35 year veteran of the Yavapai County Public Works department.

                Yavapai County Newsletter
                Yavapai County – News and Views
                Yavapai County Government – January – March 2015
                http://www.yavapai.us/hr/files/2015/03/News-and-Views-Jan-March-2015.pdf

                On PDF page 6 ( of 13 pages )
                —————————————————–
                2014 Service Award Recipients
                Congratulations to those employees celebrating
                Service Anniversaries in 2014!
                30 YEARS
                Reggie Passmore – Public Works
                —————————————————–

                Reply

                • Typo above.

                  Yavapai County Public Works employee is a 30 year veteran of the department, and not 35 years.

                  The information in the online PDF file celebrating his service has the correct number ( 30 years ) in it.

                  Reply

              • WTKTT Was it you that said look at what is not said? That dozer man and dozer line information is likely a key in this investigation. Whew was it close to the Helms and close to where the men were cut off–Yes this is crucial information, and might answer my head scratcher as to why I saw people leaving and smoke and fire already headed toward us where we were parked on Foothills Drive. Joy just says no–DR. Ted Putnam said that last week at breakfast.

                Reply

              • And that also would mean that we still don’t know who that “Justin” was that Cory Ball was supposed to be “tie-ing” in to.

                Reply

  116. **
    ** NICKEL AND DIMED… TO DEATH
    **
    ** DARRELL WILLIS WAS PROMISED AN ‘S’ NUMBER TO REPLACE
    ** THE GRANITE MOUNTAIN ATV… BUT IT NEVER HAPPENED.

    This is a continuation of a thread from down below that was starting to run out of room.

    It’s the thread that was discussing some more of the financial management aspects of GM and the fact that no one bothered to replace the ATV they had when it got burned up on the Halstead fire.

    This ‘story’ continues to be relevant because GM was really handicapped in Yarnell on June 30, 2013 WITHOUT their own ATV or UTV ( like the other Type 1 Hotshot Crew had )… and there has always been the high likelihood that if GM had their own ATV in Yarnell that Sunday… the outcome of the day might have been totally different and we wouldn’t even be here having this conversation.

    The last question on the thread was about WHY ( if someone had already decided that having an ATV was “essential” to GM’s field operations and that was what got them the original acquisition for $8,000 in 2008 ) didn’t Darrell Willis and/or Eric Marsh make sure that DOUBLE-E ‘Essential Equipment’ was IMMEDIATELY replaced following its loss on the Halstead Fire.

    >> On June 9, 2015 at 9:03 am, Gary Olson said…
    >>
    >> OK, here is my chance to take a shot at Darrell Willis and the fact
    >> that the GMIHC were in my opinion, a “blueprint for disaster.”
    >>
    >> Although in light of my new rule…”actually more of a guideline than a
    >> rule” (Bill Murray in Ghostbusters) I am going to try really hard to choose
    >> my words carefully.
    >>
    >> SOMEBODY e.g., Darrell Willis or Eric Marsh, had to know how the
    >> system works and how to work the system Emergency replacement
    >> requisitions don’t fill themselves out.

    >> On June 9, 2015 at 9:13 am, Gary Olson also said…
    >>
    >> Whoops, I left out the most important part,
    >>
    >> SOMEBODY e.g., Darrell Willis or Eric Marsh, had to know how the
    >> system works and how to work the system Emergency replacement
    >> requisitions don’t fill themselves out, “ALONG WITH THE
    >> CORRESPONDING JUSTIFICATION.”
    >>
    >> Although it sounds like Darrell Willis did know how to write a
    >> blah, blah, blah, justification.

    SIDENOTE: Darrell Wllis DID write the original ‘justification’ in the 2008 Prescott City Budget VAR ( Vehicle Acquisitioin Request ) for the ATV for Granite Mountain and it appeared as follows in the budget…

    —————————————————————————————
    ** PRESCOTT CITY BUDGET DOCUMENT
    ** ANNUAL BUDGET for the
    ** Fiscal Year July 1, 2007 – June 30, 2008

    Direct link to the public online budget document…

    City of Prescott budget for fiscal year
    July 1, 2007 – June 30, 2008

    http://prescott-az.gov/_d/city_budget_2008.pdf

    On page 394 there are specifics about the ATV purchase being requested for Fiscal Year ( FY ) 2008 via a standard Prescott Fire Department VAR ( Vehicle Acquisition Request )… including COMMENTS being made by Darrell Willis about why it was needed and what it was going to be used for…

    FY2008 VAR REQUEST

    4×4 All Terrain Vehicle
    Budget: $8,000
    Total Cost: $8,000
    Project Duration: FY2008
    Fund: General Fund

    COMMENTS
    Funds for the purchase of a 500 EFI All Terrain Vehicles and three helmets. The use of an ATV while on wildland fires gives the ability to scout the fire prior to deploying resources. This vehicle also enables the wildland crew to extricate sick or injured firefighters off the line for medical treatment and allows the crew to deliver much needed water and supplies to the crew when they are several miles from the crew vehicles.
    ————————————————-

    >> On June 9, 2015 at 9:35 am Gary Olson also said…
    >>
    >> and one more thing, anytime you can work the word “safety” into
    >> a justification it makes the whole thing like a hot potato, everybody
    >> defaults to stamping it “approved” and passes it on down the line.
    >>
    >> Nobody wants to left holding the shit bag when safety goes out
    >> the window…right Arizona State Forestry?

    >> On June 9, 2015 at 10:07 am, Bob Powers replied…
    >>
    >> Gary I believe you are right on.
    >> any Loss do to the fire from Fire fighting equipment is replaceable.
    >> You have to file a loss with the Finance section to have it charged to
    >> the fire would not make a difference if Federal crew or Pickup Crew Etc.
    >> The loss is covered by the fire (Justification Game) as you so
    >> eloquently stated.
    >>
    >> The Key is filing the loss before leaving the fire.
    >>
    >> Vehicle losses may be different but still chargeable to the Fire
    >> charge number. Might require more paper work.

    Well… as it turns out… the loss of Granite Mountain’s ATV on the Halstead fire WAS ‘reported’… and they WERE promised an ‘S’ number for replacement, but now the mystery totally centers on Darrell Willis and Eric Marsh and why they didn’t follow through and replace the damn thing.

    The ADOSH investigators had heard about the Granite Mountain ATV getting burned up on a fire…and they did, in fact, ASK Darrell Willis what he knew about this in his SECOND ADOSH interview.

    Darrell Willis tells ADOSH that it WAS reported and the paperwork WAS filed and that a valid ‘S’ number WOULD be assigned.

    Astonishingly ( but typically ) the ADOSH investigators then just ‘moved on’ and didn’t even ask Willis why the ATV was then never replaced.

    From Darrell Willis’ SECOND ADOSH interview on October 10, 2013…
    ——————————————————————————————–
    1126 Q4: Well, did you hear about – about burning up a, uh, ATV?
    1127
    1128 A: Yep, I did, on the Halstead Fire.
    1129
    1130 Q4: What was that story?
    1131
    1132 A: Halstead Fire.
    1133
    1134 Q4: Okay, could you tell me what you – what you know about that?
    1135
    1136 A: Yeah, I – I’m gonna just defer a little bit ‘cause I don’t know many details.
    1137 But I know they got it stuck while they were hauling some fuel doing a
    1138 burnout. I know that it was investigated by the safety officer. And I know
    1139 that the team determined that it was an accident and that they would provide
    1140 us with an S number for replacement. And I think if there’s any fault, uh,
    1141 negligence or anything like that, they’ll never, uh, give us an S number for
    1142 something like that.
    1143
    1144 Q4: Right.
    1145
    1146 A: I don’t remember the details. It was all filed through the State.
    1147
    1148 Q5: Was that a State fire, Darrell?
    1149
    1150 A: Pardon me?
    1151
    1152 Q5: Was the Hals- Halstead a State fire?
    1153
    1154 A: It was in Idaho on the, uh, Salmon-Challis.
    1155
    1156 Q5: Oh okay.
    1157
    1158 Q4: Thank you for those answers. I…
    1159
    1160 A: Oh sure.
    ——————————————————————————————–

    >> On June 9, 2015 at 8:37 am, Gary Olson also said…
    >>
    >> Because yes…we didn’t need ATV’s but once they become standard
    >> equipment and wildland firefighters become reliant on them, their
    >> absence can have a significant impact on the efficiency, productivity
    >> and safety of a crew as it sounds like it did in this case.

    Agree.

    I think the ATV/UTV situation in the WFF world is pretty much like the cellphones now.

    The ‘Fire Gods” are ‘behind-the-ball and havent caught up to “technology” yet… and don’t want to admit that this equipment is already being treated as ESSENTIAL by the troops on the line.

    There are few Fire Command personnel that could now imagine managing a fire WITHOUT having cellphone access… but the “Fire Gods” still don’t even really have any fully developed ‘policies’ governing their actual use in lieu of standard radio.

    Ditto for the UTV / ATV technology. There are places and terrains where WFFs can no longer imagine being asked to fight a fire without using one… but the official WFF policies are still lagging far behind.

    On this particular fire… in that particular location and with THAT specific kind of overgrown two-track trail network… ATV’s were pretty much ESSENTIAL to that workplace.

    If it wasn’t for the fact that the other Type 1 IHC Crew had the good sense to show up with their own UTV… there are a LOT of things that wouldn’t have even been possible there on the south side of the fire… such as getting the red-carded Cory Ball delivered out to the dozer, and all the advanced SCOUTING that Frisby and Brown did, as well as the face-to-face meetings with Marsh and Steed and the eventual delivery ( and ACTUAL RESCUE ) of Brendan McDonough to/from that lookout mound.

    It’s actually pretty safe to say that if Marsh and Steed had made Brendan walk down to that Lookout Mound under his own power circa 12:30 PM, and there had been NO ATV or UTV available at all there on that south side of the fire… then Brendan would have been the first fatality that day a little later in the afternoon.

    SAIT Co-Lead Mike Dudley even affirms this fact and added “No question” to this Brendan-would have-died scenario when he was speaking in Utah.

    I have ALWAYS felt that NOT having an ATV vehicle with them on June 30, 2013 was a contributing factor to the tragedy.

    Maybe not causal… but certainly contributory given the fact that the poor decision making later in the afternoon had everything to do with them NOT having done the proper scouting of those trails and escape routes that morning and achieving the Situational Awareness they would need that afternoon to stay alive.

    They were given a ‘designated safety zone’ that was TWO MILES away from where they were working… with a dubious and unimproved series of two-tracks and trails being also designated as the only ‘escape route’ to that distant ‘safety zone’.

    Those distances and those trails could have ONLY been scouted quickly with an ATV… but that could have made all the difference that day if they had only had that capability.

    An ATV would have made it EASY for them to have achieved the full SA they needed to stay alive out there that day… but they lacked that option

    It still kills me that for whatever reasons Prescott Wildland Division Chief and or GM Superintendent Eric Marsh didn’t see to it that GM’s ATV was replaced “most ricky-tick” after the Halstead fire… that Eric Marsh didn’t even think to BORROW that ATV from the Yarnell Fire Department on June 30, 2013.

    It was sitting right there in the Yarnell Fire Department garage DURING the 7:00 AM briefing there that Marsh attended. He must have seen it just sitting there doing nothing.

    That YFD ATV ended up ‘just sitting there doing nothing’ for the REST OF THE DAY.

    It wasn’t used at all until later in the afternoon when someone drove BR Hotshot Cory Ball over to the YFD Station to borrow it so he could execute SPGS1 Gary Cordes’ order to scout out some ’emergency dozer line’ to try and protect the Glen Ilah subdivision.

    Reply

    • Followup…

      Notice above that when Prescott Wildland Division Chief Darrell Willis was reporting what he knew about GM burning up their ATV on the Halstead fire… he is mentioning the fact that they were promised an ‘S’ number for ‘replacement’ in the context that this meant there was no finding of any ‘negligence’ on his crew’s part.

      Willis is suggesting that if the Safety Officer HAD found evidence of ‘negligence’… that no ‘S’ number would be granted for replacement… and so…ipso-facto… the fact that they were being promised this ‘S’ number was PROOF that no one thought it was their fault.

      Again… from Willis’ SECOND ADOSH interview on October 10, 2013…
      ———————————————————————————–
      1134 Q4: Okay, could you tell me what you – what you know about that?
      1135
      1136 A: Yeah, I – I’m gonna just defer a little bit ‘cause I don’t know many details.
      1137 But I know they got it stuck while they were hauling some fuel doing a
      1138 burnout. I know that it was investigated by the safety officer. And I know
      1139 that the team determined that it was an accident and that they would provide
      1140 us with an S number for replacement. And I think if there’s any fault, uh,
      1141 negligence or anything like that, they’ll never, uh, give us an S number for
      1142 something like that.
      ————————————————————————————-

      So before any of the ADOSH investigators could even ASK Willis is he thought there was any negligence involved on GM’s part with losing the ATV… Willis quickly added…

      “And I think if there’s any fault, uh, negligence or anything like that, they’ll never, uh, give us an S number for something like that.”

      Willis was using the promise of the ‘S’ number itself as some kind of proof that no one at the incident was seeing any ‘negligence’ involved.

      Reply

      • Followup to followup…

        It’s all well and good that ( according to Darrell Willis ) no one at the Halstead fire ( Safety Officer included ) seemed to see any big ‘negligence’ involved in GM losing their ATV in the fire…

        …but if that was the case.. then why wasn’t the damn ATV replaced?

        Could it be that the replacement funds actually showed up but Willis played some more ‘nickel and dime’ games and used the money for something else?

        Actually… I suppose that raises just another ‘nuts and bolts’ question.

        If you DO have a valid ‘S’ number to replace a vehicle lost in a fire… do you get a CHECK to spend… or do you have to repurchase the vehicle and just send the CHARGES up the line to whoever is paying for it?

        How does that work?

        If it was a CHECK that just showed up for $8,000…then Willis ( or even Marsh ) COULD have just used that money for something else, right?

        Reply

        • A Check or PO # with the S-number from the Fire charged to go thru Finance back to the fire for Replacement Items. The same Fire Charge number as The Time sheets use for reimbursement. Any and all lost or damaged items are replaced thru a Fire order to a fire cache or purchased from a store with a check or PO.. The additional cost of Fire Fighting after the fire is out Final costs are not figured until all payments are made some big fires could go out as far as 6 months on disputed items.
          On those kinds of thins you have to keep following up and put pressure on to get the S# and replace the equipment.

          Reply

          • Copy that. Thank you.

            So… how easy ( or difficult ) would it be to take the Check / PO and use the money for something other than what it was intended for?

            Sounds like that would NOT be easy to do.

            Reply

            • Wow, now that is thinking out of the box. And I would say it very might well be possible if whoever is paying (state or feds) sends a check for what the item cost or what a replacement item cost and that is a question for the finance people who ran the fire (or how they reimburse for any fire per their policy).

              That would have been unthinkable in my day because it would have been done with an in-house purchase order at the local ATV shop with whoever had the GSA contract that year, (Honda, Yamaha etc.). But with the Willis et al operation…it is a good question that needs to be answered.

              Although once again, it would be a contributing factor and not a casual factor in my opinion because technically that it would have been well within Willis’ scope of duties as the first line manager for the GMIHC, he who giveth can taketh away I guess? Just as long as the people who bought off on the original blah blah blah justification don’t find out or care.

              No…strike that, that ATV was bought with federal grant money right? So maybe not.

              Reply

              • Somebody needs to drop a dime with the OIG, as if you can get them off their asses to do anything. There I go again, shootin’ from the hip, but it was done in jest?

                Reply

                • Woops my bad statement— I meant The City if no PO
                  could write a check against the Fire service and charge it back to the fire with a S#. Not the Finance office of the fire writing a check to the City.
                  Sorry about that——–

                  Reply

                  • If they authorized a S# to pay for the ATV that purchase would show back to the Fire cost with the specific item listed not easy to buy something else.

                    Reply

                    • So an S # is federal? USFS? if so, are you sure they would not just send a reimbursement check to the city instead of a PO?

                      It seems logical to me they would send a check made out to the city instead of a PO. They send a check to the city for reimbursement for time, travel, equipment mileage and everything else…right?

                      I don’t want to let this one go. Willis might be right where I want him…in the OIG crosshairs, hee, hee.

                    • Please disregard that last post…I have been drinking this afternoon.

                      This IS serious business, we do need to find out who left the GMIHC without an ATV because it was a contributing factor in their deaths.

                    • Ok–The Fire Finance would assign a S# charge to the fire for the replacement of the UTV.
                      The City could Purchase the UTV then bill back to the Fire Charge Number with the Assigned S# for reimbursement of the City’s costs.
                      I suppose they could post a check to the City but have normally not seen that.
                      Feds Like me always bought off of a PO which is a basic Government Check.
                      Or if we Had purchase agreements with certain Stores or Restraints, Chainsaw merchants ETC
                      we charged and they billed based on the charge number we gave them. We returned the purchase slip to our Finance section for Payment.
                      I am still not totally sure what this S# is that Willis referred to????S as in Supply #
                      A UTV would be an Equipment # or E with a attached number.
                      The Fire Number for Charges is a 3 letter Designator If the Fire was on the Salmon NF
                      I believe that is SAF-xxxxxxxx — x’s being the assigned charge number. The Order Number assigned is a letter identifying C-Crews, E-Equipment, S-supplies, A-aircraft ETC.
                      The numbers are in order starting at 001 and going up for each new order assigned against the fire Name and Number.
                      It is quite a complex system of tracking and delivery and in some cases return of people and Equipment. back to where they came from.

                      If you have a peace of equipment destroyed on a Fire. You go to Finance and File Paper work and you May get it replaced at the Fire or you may have to wait till you are home and Purchase something like the UTV and be reimbursed by the Fire if they authorized the replacement purchase. The Money counters are in control at this point and are sticklers for justifications.

  117. ** 2010 REPORT ON GM’S FIRST TWO YEARS AS A TYPE 1 IHC
    **
    ** ERIC MARSH SAYS A WIND SHIFT SHOULD ALWAYS MAKE
    ** THE HAIR ON THE BACK OF YOUR NECK STAND UP

    No real NEW information in here… but this one will definitely make the “hair stand up on the back of your neck” for other reasons along the lines of Shakespearean level ‘foreshadowing’ and ‘irony’.

    I was just out searching for an online copy of the Prescott City Budget that shows the original ATV purchase ( for a lousy nickle-and-dime $8,000 in relation to a Million-plus dollar budget ) and I stumbled across the following.

    It’s an actual direct quote from Eric Marsh in the year 2010 during a media interview with the Prescott Daily Courier’s own Joanna Dodder Nellans.

    Eric Marsh is talking to her about how they TRAIN to fight “lightning strike” wildfires out in the boondock and how sudden “wind shifts” should ALWAYS (quote) “make the hair stand up on the back of your neck”.

    Darrell Willis is then also quoted about how common these ‘wind shifts’ are during the Arizona monsoon season and its afternoon thunderstorms.

    These quotes are coming out of these men’s mouths TWO YEARS before the tragedy.

    Eric Marsh’s actual quotes from the article…
    ————————————————————————————
    Granite Mountain Superintendent Eric Marsh said…
    “We could have 20-25 lightning starts in an afternoon,”
    “Some could burn out in a few hours, and some could go to 20,000 acres.
    “And that lightning fire that starts in the middle of nowhere can end up in
    somebody’s front yard.”
    “When you feel that wind shift and your hair stand up on the back of your neck,
    you can’t do that in a classroom,” he said.
    ———————————————————————————–

    OPS1 Todd Abel testified that it was Eric Marsh himself who first reported to him over the radio that fateful afternoon in Yarnell that the winds were now getting “squirrelly” up on that ridge and on the south end of the fire… and moments later Captain Jesse Steed would hear the weather report and radio Brendan there was going to be a 180 degree wind shift.

    I wish the “hair” really HAD “stood up” on everyone’s neck and they had just stayed right where they frickin’ were that afternoon and we were NOT here having this conversation.

    Truly Shakespearean ‘foreshadowing’ and ‘irony’ at the same time.

    ** THE ARTICLE ITSELF

    NOTE: This is the article that originally featured that video with Eric Marsh and Jesse Steed talking to the camera and explaing what the GM Hotshots do. Video also contains Jake Hannah, first year hotshot, and Wade Tait, who says himself he had ‘been around for a while’ and wasn’t a rookie.

    Eric’s ‘foreshadowing’ comment comes at the very END of this interview…

    In addition to Eric’s comments… it also contains comments from Darrell Willis and 2010 GM squad boss Daniel McCarty and crew member Justin Kaoni.

    The Prescott Daily Courier
    Article Title: Hotshots are a critical resource this time of year
    Published: 7/10/2010 10:00:00 PM by Joanna Dodder Nellans
    http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubsectionID=1086&ArticleID=83123

    ————————————————
    With the potential for multiple remote wildfire starts from dry lightning this time of year in Arizona, it’s comforting to know Prescott has its own Type I Interagency Hotshots Crew.

    It’s a rare feeling, because it’s the only such municipal crew in the country.

    With the Prescott National Forest’s Hotshots called away Saturday on a Tonto Forest fire, Prescott still has an elite hotshot crew on hand that can quickly respond to remote wildfires in tough terrain.

    Most official Interagency Hotshot Crews are federal government crews. Only three are not, and only the Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew is a municipal crew.

    That can make a crew feel like it has a little bit extra to prove, and the Granite Mountain crew’s Latin motto shows the crew is well aware of its position. Translated to English, the motto is “To be, rather than to seem.”

    This is the crew’s second fire season as a Type I team.

    “They have had to break into a tight culture,” said Darrell Willis, the Prescott Fire Department’s Wildland Division chief.

    Willis and other fire department leaders saw the need for a municipal hotshot crew because wildfire is the biggest threat to Prescott.

    Training is a huge part of the Granite Mountain crew’s ability to match its motto. Federal rules require at least 40 hours of critical training, and the Granite Mountain Hotshots meet and exceed that requirement.

    “It was tougher than anything I’ve ever done,” rookie crew member Justin Kaoni said.

    Half the 12-man crew is new this year, although at least 80 percent must have some kind of wildland firefighting experience. Eight crew members stay year-round and help with wildfire prevention projects.

    The Granite Mountain Hotshots’ hardest training session took place during the last two weeks of April, ending with “The Screamer,” cutting fire line for about 24 hours straight with only a few hours rest. One rookie didn’t make it.

    After fighting several wildfires now, the rookies really understand the need for such training.

    Just a few weeks after practicing evacuating an injured firefighter to a helispot (remote helicopter landing site), the crew ended up conducting a real evacuation for an injured member of another crew and clear vegetation for a helicopter landing, Kaoni noted.

    Training isn’t just for the rookies, either.

    “We can never train too much,” said Daniel McCarty, a Prescott native who already has been promoted to squad boss at age 22. He sees the training as a great way to get back in shape after a long winter, too.

    The Prescott Forest hasn’t had any big fires this year, but the Granite Mountain Hotshots are a national resource, and they have helped battle several fires throughout Arizona and New Mexico this year. A potentially dangerous season still looms up north.

    The crew helped save numerous homes on the north side of Flagstaff from the Schultz Fire, Willis noted.

    While the monsoon appears to be trying to push its way into Arizona, this can be the most dangerous time of year for wildfires because of the dry lightning that tends to strike in early monsoon storms.

    These pre-monsoonal storms can produce multiple remote lightning fires in highly variable winds, Willis noted. Firefighters who hike into them are especially vulnerable to getting hit by lightning.

    “And if lightning fires spark throughout the region, resources get spread thin”, noted Granite Mountain Superintendent Eric Marsh.

    “We could have 20-25 lightning starts in an afternoon,” Marsh said.
    “Some could burn out in a few hours, and some could go to 20,000 acres.”
    “And that lightning fire that starts in the middle of nowhere can end up in somebody’s front yard.”

    While training covers many of the situations hotshot crews face, it can’t cover them all,
    Marsh noted.

    “When you feel that wind shift and your hair stand up on the back of your neck,
    you can’t do that in a classroom,” he said.
    ————————————————

    Reply

  118. **
    ** NEW ARTICLES ON LATEST LAWSUIT EXTENSIONS

    A couple of new article have appeared today regarding this newest 30 day extension of the global mediation talks.

    No big revelations but unlike the original Prescott Daily Courier article.. these articles are saying the exact same thing that was said regarding the LAST 30 day extension ( which just expired on June 4 ).

    That same explanation is being repeated that another 30 days is needed in the ‘wrongful death’ mediations just because of something happening over in the ‘related’ “Arizona Forestry versus ADOSH” case.

    So this all really must have everything to do with this latest THIRD cancellation of Brendan McDonough’s under-oath deposition.

    Just like 30 days ago… when everything hinged on that happening… any chance at settling these suits must STILL be ‘hinging’ on getting this guy to do what he should have done from day ONE and tell all he knows about what went down out there that day.

    It really must be just Brendan McDonough, his mysterious therapist, and his criminal defense attorney David Shapiro that are holding ALL of these court proceedings ‘hostage’ now.

    KTAR News
    Judge giving both sides more time in Yarnell wrongful death lawsuit
    http://ktar.com/22/1840616/Judge-giving-both-sides-more-time-in-Yarnell-wrongful-death-lawsuit

    From the article…
    ——————————————————————–
    The lawyers have said settlement talks have been complicated by a separate but related case that imposed fines and citations on the state Forestry Division.

    Tucci ordered attorneys to submit a status report by July 6.
    ——————————————————————–

    Also remember that July 6 is the ‘drop dead’ day when the lawyers are supposed to submit their STATUS report(s) to Judge Tucci.

    That means whatever new negotiations have to take place need to take place well before that in order to give the lawyers time to write YASR ( Yet Another Status Report ) for the Judge.

    I’m beginning to wonder… then…

    Is Arizona Forestry intending to be holding new ‘mediation talks’ with the families of those men who burned to death DURING the actual second anniversary of the tragedy? ( June 30, 2015 ).

    Reply

    • Followup.. that KTAR news link posted about is just one of many appearing today that are all running the new “Associated Press” version of this story.

      So it is now the “Associated Press” itself that, unlike the Prescott Daily Courier, is saying that this latest 30 day extension is for the same reason and the previous one.

      It has something to do with the (quote) “separate but related case that imposed fines and citations on the state Forestry Division”.

      In other words… something going down specifically in the “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” proceeding… and namely… the continually botched attempts to get McDonough into a room.

      Reply

    • Maybe it won’t be a guy Gary
      maybe a girl

      No Gary…jusst wanted to see if you were still kicking …hee hee

      Man that mayor must of been one lousy or shady car salesman huh?

      Hee hee

      well we are all doing what we can to heal

      terribly sad that some just spend one day memorializing when if all that was on the fire just spoke up…thawould be the correct just way to honor and memorialize all fallen

      wellalways enjoy stopping on here

      i cannot begin to tell you HOW sweltering the heat is in the sandbox…shew…hikes towardsaalamo lake are hot hot hot that the mosquitoes run around naked.

      Reply

  119. Joy and I had a pleasant visit with the Prescott mayor this weekend. He says a good man will be running against Freole (the man from the Prescott fire department). The present mayor served well as mayor.. He is retiring but tells me the new man vs Freole is Obermeyer if my spelling is correct., The mayor says he is up to the job. He had been a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War among other qualifications that will make him a choice candidate. We have yet to meet him but he sounds like the man I would put my vote on..

    We also ran into a well known radio commentator. He has a lot of interest in the Yarnell Fire so we directed him to this site to get some ideas on where the investigation is going. Too many people believe the state will expend plenty of funds to keep the real story from ever surfacing. I differ on that. Too much has been unraveled right here on this site already. The pieces keep falling into place so that somewhere the truth will be found out. The good old boy back slapping can only hold up so far. When so many people loose loved ones to the extent we saw here, nothing but the truth will satisfy.

    Otis from the UK gets congradulations for the new one. He has been avidly keeping up with this web site. He tells me that grass fires are a big problem in the UK and more often set by arsonists. The vegetation in the Yarnell area that was burned off is already thick enough for another fire with plenty of grasses between the manzanita and scrub oak brush. I wonder if these local firemen have learned anything from the 6-30-13 disaster. Will they make every effort to treat a future fire as an emergency, or will it be the same old, same old–wait until it gets big enough to bring in troops, equipment, and retardant. God save the men if they don’t get better training and smarter bosses.

    About the land sale–strange precedent for Arizona. It ought to be a national site for firemen training on what not to do and a place where all the bumbling can be pointed out so that future situations might be handled correctly. You would not restrict the wall for Vietnam Vets who passed in Nam. Why would you restrict that site to just a few loved ones? I would think the loved ones would not even want to do that–but I do understand there are a few that are different. I do not restrict the gravesite of my son to anyone who desires to visit. He was one that had a multitude of friends and was loved by many. I appreciate their concern and visits in his honor and memory.

    A proxy buyer could do just that and turn it into a national training site. You can know that many future firemen’sives would be saved by hands on training in that very areal. That manzanita is just what men need to experience–and questions whether to head to the boulders, whether to deploy in such a maze of brush, and whether to even get caught in such an area and many other questions would be answered hands on training in that very region. Nothing better to train in that area for young men wanting to be Wild Land Firefighters. If I were one of the deceased–that is exactly what I would want.

    Reply

    • Reply to Sonny post on June 8, 2015 at 12:35 pm

      >> Sonny wrote…
      >>
      >> Too many people believe the state will expend plenty of funds to keep the
      >> real story from ever surfacing. I differ on that. Too much has been unraveled
      >> right here on this site already. The pieces keep falling into place so that
      >> somewhere the truth will be found out. The good old boy back slapping can
      >> only hold up so far. When so many people loose loved ones to the extent
      >> we saw here, nothing but the truth will satisfy.

      Totally agree.

      I don’t think the “Fire Gods” employed with either Arizona Forestry or the US Forestry Service have ever fully grasped the magnitude of this event… nor have a lot of the FFs who where there and still know things they aren’t saying.

      This is not only one of the greatest tragedies in US History… it’s also the greatest ‘blunder’ in the history of Wildland Firefighting. It shouldn’t have happened… and finding out exactly WHY ( if that is humanly possible ) isn’t something that is going to just ‘go away’.

      It is also the first big fatality incident in Wildland Fireghting since the dawn of this new Digitial / Social / FaceTweet age.

      The entire world was asked to mourn these men… and did… and there are a LOT of people who did that mourning who also aren’t ready to just accept that “God had a different plan for those men that day” as the REASON they are all dead.

      Reply

      • >> WTKTT said…
        >>
        >> It is also the first big fatality incident in Wildland Fireghting since
        >> the dawn of this new Digitial / Social / FaceTweet age.

        And on that one point alone… it is always worth pointing out that basically from day one it was Gary Olson that was pointing out this ‘reality’ to the people that needed to be realizing it… but they didn’t listen to him.

        As Gary was noting… THIS one point alone is what was going to make this ‘rodeo’ far different from any previous bad WFF incident… and it HAS.. and will CONTINUE to do so.

        There are “Lessons to be Learned” on BOTH sides of the fence here.

        Not just regarding the Incidents themselves… but how they need to be handled afterwards from here on out. The ‘old ways’ aren’t going to cut the cake anymore.

        If you ask the WORLD to mourn such losses with you… the WORLD is going to want a wee bit more information about what REALLY went down than “God had a different plan for them”.

        Reply

    • Reply to Sonny post on June 8, 2015 at 12:35 pm.

      >> Sonny said…
      >>
      >> About the land sale–strange precedent for Arizona.
      >> It ought to be a national site for firemen training on what not to do
      >> and a place where all the bumbling can be pointed out so that future
      >> situations might be handled correctly.

      Agree.

      >> Sonny also said…
      >>
      >> A proxy buyer could do just that and turn it into a national training site.

      Yes. It’s possible. For all we know… some OTHER National Level Firefighting Association might even show up at this PUBLIC auction and be bidding for the land.

      A minimum bid of $304,000 for 320 acres is basically peanuts… and it is KNOWN that this Arizona State Yarnell Hill Memorial Site Board only has a maximum of $500,000 to bid for those 320 acres.

      Even $500,000 is peanuts these days for 320 acres… and it is HIGHLY LIKELY that some ‘other groups’ may have plans for that deployment site and will be showing up on the steps of the Yavapai County Courthouse at 11:00 AM on the morning of the second anniversary of the tragedy to try and become the OWNERS of that box canyon.

      >> Sonny also said…
      >>
      >> You can know that many future firemen’sives would be saved by hands on
      >> training in that very areal.

      Agree.

      The area will one day be back to almost its identical condition as it was on the day of June 30, 2013. It will serve as a constant reminder to others about making better decisions about ‘bushwhacking’ when there is an active, wind-driven fire near your location(s).

      It will be INVALUABLE for future FFs to stand at that ‘Descent Point’ and just imagine whether they could be ‘fooled’ into thinking they had the TIME to do what Granite Mountain decided to do.

      And by ‘Granite Mountain’ and the actual decision they had the time for the shortcut… I am actually talking about Jesse Steed now.

      If what Brendan McDonough will someday testify to is TRUE… then Eric Marsh was NOT with Jesse Steed and Granite Mountain at that fateful moment when Marsh was (apparently) first insisting and then ORDERING Steed to bring those men into that Canyon.

      We are still looking at a scenario here whereby whatever ‘good time’ Eric Marsh was able to make on his own ‘bushwhack’… he should NEVER have assumed that Steed and the men would be able to make that same ‘good time’ during their own descent.

      I believe it was you, yourself, Sonny, who has always been pointing out that as hard as it is for anyone to traverse that kind of vegetation and terrain… a single person trying to do it will always certainly make much better time than a group of 19 men with 45 pound packs trying to stay in a single-file line and traverse the same ground.

      It would be THESE kinds of things… and the resulting decsions being made… that will need to serve as “Lessons Learned” for future WFFs… and access to the same place where these poor decisions were being made is important for all.

      Reply

      • I have to believe one person in shape and fresh such as Marsh appeared that day we saw him can fight through the brush much faster than 19. That day Marsh was on full throttle and able to go up those grades like a jack rabbit. The men we saw on the other hand looked spent. They had followed the pink ribbons Marsh had laid out and Marsh was all over the place while they marched single file as you saw in Joy’s photo. He climbed up through the boulders and back and her photos show him talking to another man never identified at one point. I was impressed at his physical abilities and reminded me of my younger days when I could boulder hop right along with him.

        Consider that they had one hell of an incline leading to safety once they got to that place on the two track above the bowl of dense manzanita below. I think that incline might have had something to do with Joy’s balking there where they went down–down looks much better in 106 degree heat, yet the west side of that range has plenty of sparse areas to descend on. Maybe they did not know that but then there were plenty of copters and pilots flying that day that should have told them.

        Now as far as Marsh being with the men, he never was near them when we saw him. He was generally above and a good quarter mile away but moving around a lot. I understand he did meet with the men, but in the beginning he was near an hour ahead of the men–they looked like ants at first when we saw them coming up to the fire line. The Helms are quiet on whether he went to the ranch before going back to meet the men but that seems to be what people are saying.

        Going back to our own route out, definitely I had to encourage Joy and our escape came only by about 11 minutes. I learned that later and knew we had to move fast in case of a fire change. There was a video put on U-tube by a fireman but later removed. There I observed drip torches being used just above the shrine on Shrine road right there where the pavement turns to dirt. The rock placement along the road is a short wall of rock and you saw these guys using drip torches. If they were doing it there then they might have been doing it also along the dozer trail that was going toward the Helms. That I think may have been why we were nearly cut off when I though we should have had a safety margin of at least an hour. That was something beside the photos of those quads that I wonder why none of the investigators (as far as I know) ever investigated.

        Reply

        • Reply to Sonny post on June 8, 2015 at 2:19 pm

          >> Sonny said…
          >>
          >> I have to believe one person in shape and fresh such as Marsh
          >> appeared that day we saw him can fight through the brush
          >> much faster than 19. That day Marsh was on full throttle and
          >> able to go up those grades like a jack rabbit. The men we saw
          >> on the other hand looked spent.

          Two points here…

          1) Eric Marsh was the Superintendent of Granite Mountain. That means that at NO time is he expected to do the “dog work” all day. The hiking and the scouting is the extent of his physical exertion on the fireline. So that right there certainly meant he was probably “less exhausted” than the CREW.

          2) Eric Marsh had only rejoined Granite Mountain a few weeks before after a ‘layoff’ due to a shoulder injury in a biking accident. So even as busy as GM had been leading up to Yarnell… Eric Marsh himself was most likely not nearly as exhausted as the CREW was.

          >> Sonny also said…
          >>
          >> The west side of that range has plenty of sparse areas to
          >> descend on. Maybe they did not know that but then there
          >> were plenty of copters and pilots flying that day that should
          >> have told them.

          Good point.. and something that still isn’t really talked about much.

          There was a definite total failure there that day with regards to just the communication and coordination that can/should be expected between ground support and air support.

          You had Air Attack Bravo 33 ( Thomas French and John Burfiend ) testifying later they basically had no frickin’ idea exactly who was working that south end of the fire on the ground and they didn’t even know a Type1 1 Hotshot Crew named Blue Ridge was even DOWN THERE working the fire until later that night when they heard on the TV on CNN.

          They were VAGUELY aware another Type 1 Hotshot Crew named Granite Mountain was ‘down there somewhere’… but (apparently) NO idea they were abandoning their assigned Division at a critical time.

          It’s still a total mystery whether this Bravo 33 Air Attack actually ever did ‘check on them’ as some of the testimony is trying to say they did… but other testimony says they did NOT.

          There is no question that whatever situational awareness Eric Marsh and Jesse Steed lacked that day while making decisions could have EASILY been provided by Air Support ( including the exact locations of the firelines at critical times when they could NOT see it )…

          …but that is also part of the total conumdrum.

          Apparently… even with all the other fall-downs between Air and Ground Support that day… Eric Marsh and Jesse Steed still weren’t even communicating with them during this risky move they were attempting.

          That turned into just one more fatal mistake.

          >> Sonny also said…
          >>
          >> The Helms are quiet on whether he went to the ranch before
          >> going back to meet the men but that seems to be what
          >> people are saying.

          The Helms were specifically asked by ADOSH investigators if they EVER saw ( or communicated ) with ANY firefighters there either ON or NEAR their property in the time leading up to the tragedy…

          …and the Helms specifically testifed to ADOSH that NO… they did NOT.

          After they watched the fire from the North with some friends up in Peeples Valley that Sunday, and then stopped in Yarnell to do some errands, and then arrived back at the Boulder Springs Ranch circa 3:00 PM or so… they say that from that moment on ( and up to the burnover at the ranch ) they never say ANY Firefighters or ANY Fire Trucks on or near their property.

          That still doesn’t mean that Eric Marsh might not have actually reached the western edge of their property. He might have gotten that far EAST ( just to make sure there wasn’t some ridiculous super-high fence or RAZOR-WIRE on that west side of the property )… but might not have actually entered the ranch property or been in a position to be seen by the Helms.

          These are all still details that ( hopefully ) will be revealed in Brendan McDonough’s eventual under-oath testimony. Hopefully he really did hear enough over the GM intra-crew radio channel to at least ‘figure all this out’.

          >> Sonny also said…
          >>
          >> There was a video put on U-tube by a fireman but later removed.
          >> There I observed drip torches being used just above the shrine
          >> on Shrine road right there where the pavement turns to dirt.
          >> The rock placement along the road is a short wall of rock and
          >> you saw these guys using drip torches.

          That ‘short wall of rock’ you refer to is clearly visible there on Shrine road in some of the additional 21 Aaaron Hulburd videos that were released by the US Forestry Service not too long ago.

          That ‘short wall of rock’ is most clearly seen in that Aaron Hulburd video where we see Jason Clawson volunteering to help that man move one of his other vehicles out of the driveway of the residence just east of the rock wall.

          If the vegetation along that rock was was ‘burned out’ by men with drip torches… then it actually had to have happened AFTER this particular Aaaron Hulburd video was taken… since there is also no clear sign of anything having ‘burned’ yet in that location.

          On the contrary… this Aaron Hulburd video still shows all the vegetation there on both sides of Shrine Road BLOWING in the strong winds at that point.

          This particular video was shot AFTER the deployment… and AFTER all the firefighters that had been working that Shrine Road and Youth Camp areas had evacuated to the Ranch House Restaurant.

          At this point… only the “Three Prescotteers” ( Jason Clawson, Aaron Hulburd and KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell ) were left there at that west end of Shrine Road and, perhaps, Dan Philbin.

          So if anyone had then started to ‘burn out’ along Shrine Road… it must have been them… but there is no evidence this ever happened.

          The closest we get to a planned ‘burnout’ in the Shrine Road Youth Camp area ever taking place is in Tyson Esquibel’s testimony when he said that they THOUGHT about “lighting things up” out there near the Youth Camp as they were evacuating… but then thought better of it and did NOT do anything like that.

          >> Sonny also said…
          >>
          >> If they were doing it there then they might have been doing it
          >> also along the dozer trail that was going toward the Helms.

          Keyword here would be ‘they’. WHO would THEY be?

          As noted above… for anyone to have even been ‘burning off’ along that rockwall on Shrine… it could not have been any of Tyson Esquibel’s TaskForce 1 people. They completely left that area just before the deployment traffic and had all reassembled down at the Ranch House Restaurant.

          Ditto for that Sun-City Engine team that was out there on ‘West Way’ and almost got entrapped themselves. They evacuated directly back to the Ranch House Restaurant along with everyone else.

          I’m not saying that any of these heretofore unreported ‘desperation burnouts’ did NOT take place… but there is still little evidence they did and it would be very confusing with regards to WHO would have even been in a position to carry them out in the places where they are being reported to have happened.

          Reply

          • Followup to above…

            >> WTKTT said…
            >>
            >> Apparently… even with all the other fall-downs between Air
            >> and Ground Support that day… Eric Marsh and Jesse Steed
            >> still weren’t even communicating with them during this risky
            >> move they were attempting.
            >>
            >> That turned into just one more fatal mistake.

            There IS some testimony that someone heard a transmission between what appeared to be Jesse Steed ( not Eric Marsh ) and ‘Air Attack’ where Steed was saying “We’re heading for a ranch we have in sight”.

            So that could be construed as ‘communication’ between Granite Mountain and Air Support… but it certainly wasn’t anything that was going to help them or save their lives. It wasn’t ENOUGH information and there is no evidence they were asking Air Attack to even DO anything with that information. It was, apparently, just this ‘out of nowhere’ announcement from Steed without even a request for a response.

            The primary REASON we have to believe that a transmission like this ( with the specific word RANCH in it ) did go out over the TAC channels that day ( and not the private GM intra-crew ) is because of DPS Medic Eric Tarr’s testimony.

            The fact that he REMEMBERED hearing some vague transmission about someone “Heading to a ranch they had in sight” is what actually allowed DPS Helicopter Ranger 58 to locate the deployment site.

            When the smoke had cleared enough over that box canyon for Ranger 58 to eve get near it… that is when DPS Officer TARR recalled hearing this “heading to a Ranch” transmission… and that is when the Ranger 58 pilot ‘flew a line’ from the west ridge and towards the Boulder Springs Ranch… and there were the shelters on the ground at the bottom of the box canyon.

            Bottom line is that whatever communicating DID take place between GM and Air Support in the time leading up to the tragedy… it wasn’t enough.

            They could have been REQUESTING the information they needed to save their lives ( actual fireline locations, etc. )… but they did NOT.

            Reply

        • Reply to Sonny post on June 8, 2015 at 2:19 pm

          >> Sonny said…
          >>
          >> I have to believe one person in shape and fresh such as Marsh
          >> appeared that day we saw him can fight through the brush
          >> much faster than 19. That day Marsh was on full throttle and
          >> able to go up those grades like a jack rabbit. The men we saw
          >> on the other hand looked spent.

          One more point about this.

          Yes… Marsh was MOST LIKELY ‘fresher’ than Steed and the rest of the Crew that day… and certainly by the late afternoon after Steed and the Crew had continued busting their butts all day on an assignment that was basically pointless as early as NOON.

          If the PULL theory really is TRUE, then ( that Marsh was way ahead of the others and even near the BSR and ‘pulling’ them to come ‘towards’ him )…

          Whatever TIME that Marsh was able to make on HIS descent from the top of the saddle and down through the box canyon beared no resemblance to the TIME that Steed and the other 18 men were going to be able to make.

          So that created TWO different ‘responsibilities’ that didn’t get fulfilled that afternoon.

          It was Marsh’s responsibility to KNOW that whatever TIME he had made on that descent was NOT going to be achievable by 18 other men with 45 punt packs on trying to bushwhack AND stay in single-file at the same time.

          It was also Jesse Steed’s responsibility to make the FINAL evaluation up there on the Saddle as to whether what he was now being asked ( or, perhaps, even ORDERED ) to do was ‘achievable’.

          As I alluded to up above… it really was, now, Jesse Steed’s responsibility to say something along the lines of…

          “Eric… regardless of how important you think this move is… I am telling you that WE ( me and the men ) are exhausted, and WE do not have the TIME to make this move in the way you are asking it to be made. We’re gonna see if we can make it back to the black and, if not, drop off onto the Congress side of this ridge and wait this thing out. Do you copy?”

          Reply

    • Sonny says
      June 8, 2015 at 12:35 pm

      Joy and I had a pleasant visit with the Prescott mayor this weekend. BY CHANCE NOT PLANNED. WE HAD TAKING SONNY’S GRANDDAUGHTER OUT FOR CANDY AND ICE CREAM AND WE BUMPED INTO HIM WHEN WE USED JERSEY LILY’S RESTROOM AND ORDERED SHIRLEY TEMPLES. YES, HE ALWAYS HAS BEEN “OLD SCHOOL” AND PLEASANT AND WANTS TO COME HANG OUT WITH THE HIKERS IN THE SANDBOX—I SAY BRING YOUR DUNE BUGGY AND GOGGLES—THAT BILL WILLIAMS AREA IS SOME ROUGH TERRAIN IN SOME AREAS AND OH SO DUSTY. He says a good man will be running against Freole (the man from the Prescott fire department). The present mayor served well as mayor.WOULD HAVE TO LOOK INTO THAT—NOT MY TOWN BUT I DO KNOW ALOT OF PEOPLE ARE SPLICED ON OBERG AND THE OLD FIRE CHIEF…. He is retiring but tells me the new man vs FreoleFRAIJO NOT REFRIED BEANS SONNY is Obermeyer if my spelling is correct.CORRECT- SPELLED WRONG, The mayor says he is up to the jobWHAT JOB IS THAT? WHERE IS GARY OLSON TO ANSWER THIS. He had been a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War among other qualifications that will make him a choice candidate. We have yet to meet him but he sounds like the man I would put my vote on..

      We also ran into a well known radio commentator. GOSH YOU ALMOST NOT WANT TO MENTION HIS NAME SONNY BUT WE ALWAYS SHARE WITH PURITY SO IT WAS DON STEELE…I KNEW THE NAME RANG A BELL AS SOON AS HE SAID IT BUT SONNY FILLED HIM IN THAT JOY SHOULD BE WITH THE FBI BECAUSE BY THE END OF THE NIGHT SHE WILL KNOW ALL ABOUT HIM…WELL, IT DID NOT TAKE THE END OF THE NIGHT—8 MINUTES LATER I HAD IT FIGURED IT OUT AND ASKED…AND CONFIRMED WITH GOOGLE TOO. THAT HELPS. I DID NOT REALIZE HOW DEEP THE GRIEVING PROCESS IS IN THIS ALL FOR ALL AFFECTED BY THE YHF. THE MAN WAS VERY WELL POLISHED AND WELL SPOKEN AND LOVELY WIFE. WE ENJOYED THAT VISIT. WE SHOWED HIM IN DICKMAN’S BOOK PAGE 194 AND 195 CORRECTION AND HE WANTED TO KNOW MORE ON THE FINAL HOURS SO I WROTE DOWN THIS WEBSITE. He has a lot of interest in the Yarnell Fire so we directed him to this site to get some ideas on where the investigation is going. Too many people believe the state will expend plenty of funds to keep the real story from ever surfacing. I differ on that. ME TOOToo much has been unraveled right here on this site already.AS WELL WITH US SONNY- THE HIKERS JUST IN PRIVATE IN 2015—THINK BACK TO THE HUNDREDS…WAS IT MORE LIKE 600-700 THAT WAS PRESENT BUT TOO MANY WE SPOKE TO…IT WILL UNRAVEL…IN SOME WAY OR SOME TIME… The pieces keep falling into place so that somewhere the truth will be found out. EXACTLY SONNYThe good old boy back slapping can only hold up so far. HMM…I THINK SOMEONE REPLIED TO YOU THIS A LONG TIME AGO—RTS? WAS IT YOU?When so many people loose loved ones to the extent we saw here, nothing but the truth will satisfy.DEPENDS ON WHO YOU ARE SONNY…WE HAVE MET SOME OF THE LOVED ONES WHO JUST WANT TO MOVE FORWARD…NO MORE INVESTIGATING…YET WE WERE THERE AND SO FOR US—CLARITY WE MUST SEEK FOR THE 19 MEN WHO PERISHED

      Otis from the UK gets congradulations for the new one. He has been avidly keeping up with this web site. He tells me that grass fires are a big problem in the UK and more often set by arsonists. I WANT TO HEAR MORE ABOUT THISThe vegetation in the Yarnell area that was burned off is already thick enough for another fire with plenty of grasses between the manzanita and scrub oak brush. I WOULDN’T KNOW—I AM RESTRICTED OFF THE WEAVERS…SONNY ISN’T—ODD HUH?I wonder if these local firemen have learned anything from the 6-30-13 disaster. Will they make every effort to treat a future fire as an emergency, or will it be the same old, same old–wait until it gets big enough to bring in troops, equipment, and retardant. God save the men if they don’t get better training and smarter bosses.I THINK LESS MILITARY DRILLS AND PUSHUPS AND MORE ON THE SCENE SENSIBLE THINKING OF PRIOR TRAGEDIES HIKES WOULD BE BETTER…TO GET A FEEL OF IT ALL—THOSE 19 SHOULD OF NEVER DIED—EVER—

      About the land sale–strange precedent for Arizona. It ought to be a national site for firemen training on what not to do and a place where all the bumbling can be pointed out so that future situations might be handled correctly.YOU ARE RIGHT ON THERE SONNY You would not restrict the wall for Vietnam Vets who passed in Nam. Why would you restrict that site to just a few loved ones? THE ONES OF THE GMHS LOVED ONES THAT I SPOKE TO WANT OTHERS TO GO BUT AFTER THE MEMORIAL THEY CREATE IS COMPLETE BUT I HOPE THEY KEEP IN MIND THE DISABLED FOLKS—THEY ARE WATCHING HOW THIS GOES…I would think the loved ones would not even want to do that–but I do understand there are a few that are different. I do not restrict the gravesite of my son to anyone who desires to visit. He was one that had a multitude of friends and was loved by many. I appreciate their concern and visits in his honor and memory. AS WELL YOUR SON DIED IN A MYSTERIOUS UNANSWERED TRAGEDY TOO SONNY SO THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOU DO NOT MIND THE VISITS TO THE GRAVESITE…

      A proxy buyer could do just that and turn it into a national training site. You can know that many future firemen’sives would be saved by hands on training in that very areal. That manzanita is just what men need to experience–and questions whether to head to the boulders, whether to deploy in such a maze of brush, and whether to even get caught in such an area and many other questions would be answered hands on training in that very region. Nothing better to train in that area for young men wanting to be Wild Land Firefighters. If I were one of the deceased–that is exactly what I would want.PLUS BETTER EQUIPMENT GOING IN AND LESS CHAOS IN RADIO TALK AND SAY “LEFT” WITH “LEFT- EAST” OR “LEFT-EAST-ASCENDING OR DESCENDING”, BE CLEAR!

      Reply

      • If you are asking for my opinion on the Mayor’s race in Prescott, I’m afraid I don’t have an opinion, because like a lot of my information, it is general info and not very specific since I have been gone from Prescott (and out of the wildland firefighting business except for serving in an emeritus status) for a few years now and my reasons to even visit Everybody’s Home Town are getting less and less as each as year goes by.

        But…I am very happy to give anyone an opinion on just about anything, just about anytime. Go ahead…ask me what time it is and I will do my best to tell you how to make a watch until your eyes glaze over.

        So…I would support anybody for Mayor of Prescott who is not recommended by Mayor Kuykendal or any of his friends (except for Sonny) since I think he is the very epitome of the Prescott good ole boy network who first created the GMIHC and then nickel and dimed them to death.

        Wow…for the first time in my life the old saying “nickel and dimed them to death” is spot on accurate and not just a hypothetical. Although I am not as angry (I am now more resigned and just sad) as I was, so I have a new rule. Well it’s actually more of a guideline really…and that is try and be more thoughtful in choosing my words instead of just shootin’ from the hip from a horse at full gallop.

        And so…I am going to specify that although I still believe the Prescott establishment nickel and dimed the GMIHC to death…literally. Although in light of my new guideline, I will specify that the actions of Mayor Kuykendal et al were contributing factors and not causal factors in the deaths of 19 firefighters.

        And as far as what I have been up to? Thank you for asking. I have been writing and re-writing my Mother Of All Posts to sum up what I know and to let everyone know what else I want to know.

        Although at the same time I keep hoping somebody else beat me to it so I don’t have to be that guy. But…if nobody else goes first…I will be that guy.

        Reply

        • Reply to Gary Olson post on June 8, 2015 at 4:16 pm

          >> Gary Olson said…
          >>
          >> So…I would support anybody for Mayor of Prescott who is not
          >> recommended by Mayor Kuykendal or any of his friends (except
          >> for Sonny) since I think he is the very epitome of the Prescott
          >> good ole boy network who first created the GMIHC and then
          >> nickel and dimed them to death.
          >>
          >> Wow…for the first time in my life the old saying “nickel and dimed
          >> them to death” is spot on accurate and not just a hypothetical.

          This incident really does give new (true) meaning to that phrase, doesn’t it?

          Case in point: The damn ATV.

          Yes… they lost it due to some carelessness but probably not under circumstances that couldn’t have happened to anyone else…

          …but then there was no immediate REPLACEMENT.

          We then just see little notes in Personnel files and ‘wish lists’ saying “I hope we can have another ATV again someday… pretty please?”

          If someone saw that original need for this Arizona-based Type 1 Hotshot Crew to have at least ONE operational ATV… then it should have been considered ‘essential equipment’ and when it was lost it should have been replaced IMMEDIATELY.

          I can think of no other fire they could have worked that season when they REALLY NEEDED at least one functional ATV.

          It would have given them the ability to do the SCOUTING that was never done that morning for this ‘escape route’ that someone in town has just pointed to on some Google map… and, perhaps, have given them the situational awareness they needed much EARLIER in the day and been able to make better decisions later when maximum SA was needed.

          Not to mention the whole deal with Brendan.

          They had to ask some OTHER Type 1 Hotshot Crew whose handlers seemed to know very well they needed a functional ATV to operate in Arizona if they could ‘pretty please’ give their crewmember a ride to a lookout mound… and then just LEAVE him there without his OWN ATV to escape in if he needed to.

          If it was Brendan who had burned to death that day ( and this most likely would have short-circuited the other horrible tragedy that transpired )… I will bet the conversation would have been ALL about this stupid ATV situation.. and why Granite Mountain was unable to replace the one they lost.

          For the sake of a lousy few ‘nickels and dimes’ for an ATV ( in relation to an already million-plus dollar budget )… things could have turned out VERY different in Yarnell on June 30, 2013.

          Reply

          • Yes…but that brings up another point which has been misplaced in the cobwebs in my brain up until now.

            That used to be, and I assume still is very much…the budget GAME that everybody plays.

            FYI, and people who did more, or more current budgeting than I did, please jump in here.

            There are hard budget dollars that are built into each Interagency Hotshot Crew that are taken out of hard budget dollars appropriated by Congress to fund each crew (and every other federal government program).

            In the case of the USFS and probably every other federal agency, those dollars are essentially skimmed off the top of the fire budget before the money starts to trickle down through the system because hotshot crews are national assets and considered a priority (the pride and joy of the fire gods even though some smokejumpers probably still like to think they are as they bronze on airport tarmacs waiting for their next very small and insignificant wildfire at least until they lose it and then it becomes a hotshot fire and the smokejumpers get to pack up their shit and go home).

            These hard dollars pay for all known and fixed costs based on the known budgets from the preceding years and pay for things like a new ATV that is bought for the first time. As the years go by and you wear out your ATV out from normal use, you must budget in a new ATV, which in the case of an ATV would be based on operating hours that it ran (ATV’s did not exist in my day of course…bummer) I guess?

            Whereas replacing vehicles is based on mileage and years because according to the years of maintenance reports, at some point it becomes more expensive to fix an old one instead of buy a new one for all of you people out there who dream of bidding at GSA auctions, (although I did buy a bitchin” late 70’s 1 ton six pack 4×4 Ford a short man could walk under without stooping over that was a good investment in Santa Fe, but I had to go to a junk yard a buy a different color bed for it since the one it had was a utility bed that was kept by the agency that had it to put on it’s replacement truck, but still….it was still a very cool truck but forgive me, I digress).

            Now that you have the set up…here comes the budgeting slight of hand, if your ATV is worn out, but the budget does not allow for a new one because of some unexpected expenses or because of budget cutbacks, the designated dumb ass just had to abandon said ATV (or anything else for that matter), at the appropriate time and place due to exigent circumstances where it gets destroyed by the XYZ Fire. Then you get to buy a brand new ATV (or anything else) and charge it off to the fire because your good ATV was unfortunately lost while fighting the XYZ Fire….so the XYZ Fire owes you a new one, problem solved.

            And the XYZ Fire, along with all of the other federal fires, are not fought by using hard target dollars because you can’t plan from year to year how much you will need except in general terms so that money is passed down as FFF money but reserves are held at each level… national, regional and forest as emergency slush funds to pay for expensive wildfires.

            And then if all of that money is used up, Congress is accustomed to the USFS, who I think we have all agreed is the 800 pound silver back mountain gorilla, goes in to a special appropriation budget hearing with empty banana basket and Congress fills it back up with what are considered to be unlimited fire fighting dollars because just like our foreign wars, nobody in Congress wants to be seen as voting against funding for the troops fighting the war and keeping smoke and wildfire out of voters neighborhoods. FFF funds were and probably still are, considered to be bottomless pits of money.

            Now, as a practical matter and for most things, you don’t actually have to have those things burned up by the fire and produce the evidence to prove your claim to the finance section to get new stuff, you just have to fill out the replacement stuff requisition forms because everybody is in on the game and this fraud is commitment in the name of the people to benefit the people by protecting their national assets and what they don’t know won’t hurt them…right?

            So…the bottom line is that every administrative section, in the case of the USFS it is a Forest and then a District, hopes for the big one to occur on in their area once in a while so they can get new stuff and have the fire pay for it. There are of course rules that have to be followed even while committing government fraud and your requests must pass the red face test and the biggest no-no is to requisition a replacement ATV because yours got burned up by the XYZ Fire when you never had an ATV in the first place.

            So how come the GMIHC just didn’t get a new replacement ATV paid for by XYZ Fire, especially since it sounds like they lost theirs legitimately? WTF…over?

            Reply

            • About halfway through this awesome pile of “how it really works” I was forming what I thought would be the perfect ‘next question’ in my own mind… but then you asked it yourself at the very end.

              It’s a VERY good question.

              I really am serious when I say that I believe even just one functional ATV out there with Granite Mountain that day might have changed the entire outcome… and it absolutely also KILLS me to realize that there was one shiny brand new one just sitting in the Yarnell Fire Department garage all day Sunday… and NO ONE was using it at all until late in the afternoon when someone drove BR Hotshot Cory Ball over to the YFD station to ‘borrow it’ in order to conduct that “scout for a good place for an emergency dozer line to protect Glen Ilah” that SPGS1 Gary Cordes had just given Ball.

              Eric Marsh LEFT to head out to the ridge from the Yarnell Fire Station himself. If he had had the good sense to borrow that shiny new ATV from YFD Chief Koile and just ride that puppy out there himself ahead of Steed and the Crew…

              …then I’m serious… things might have all been different that day.

              Marsh could have just left his Supt Truck there at the YFD… taken off west in the borrowed ATV, and had Steed stop by the YFD and insert a driver into the GM Supt Truck as they passed by there coming down from their breakfast up at the Model Creek ICP.

              All the GM vehicles could have ended up out there in the Sesame clearing area in the same ‘staging’ spots… but now Marsh would have been up on the west ridge with an ATV and able to scout in BOTH directions ( north AND south ) up there on that viable two-track that ran the whole length of the ridge.

              What’s astounding to me is that Marsh was right there IN the YFD fire station garage for that 7:00 AM briefing… and he more than likely actually SAW this shiny new YFD ATV.

              But it didn’t even occur to him that he should even ASK if he could borrow it?

              Doesn’t make any sense.

              It sat there in that garage all day without ANYONE using it… until Cory Ball borrowed it to go scout more dozer line for Cordes.

              As for the ‘replacement voodoo’… yes… I really, really wonder why GM didn’t get a new ATV aftet Fire XYZ that ate it.

              Here’s the ‘next best’ question, I guess.

              Did it MATTER, in this case, that Granite Mountain was a Muicipally sponsored resource and NOT a FED resource?

              Does that affect this standard “everybody knows how to do it if it’s the FEDS… wink wink, nod nod” approach?

              SIDENOTE: The budgetary and financial information surrounding Granite Mountain that the City of Prescott supplied to ADOSH investigators was really pretty piss-poor… but the ATV itself DID show up in one of the Prescott Fire Department budgets. It appears to have been paid for out these GRANT monies that Darrell Willis had become an ‘expert’ at getting to flow into his operation(s).

              It showed up as a standard VAR ( Vehicle Acquistion Request ) in the Prescott Fire Department Budget.

              So it (technically) SHOULD have been also covered by the standard Vehicle Replacement Insurance Policies that apply to ALL properly acquired VARs in a Fire Department.

              Nobody ever asked Darrell Willis a single question about this.

              Reply

              • Followup… here is Darrell Willis submitting the original VAR request for the ATV. His own comments are on the request and he makes a good pitch for it. He really does make it sound like for a Type 1 Hotshot Crew trying to fight fires in the multi-terrain Arizona boondock… this puppy should be considered DOUBLE-E ( Essential Equipment ).

                ** PRESCOTT CITY BUDGET DOCUMENT
                ** ANNUAL BUDGET for the
                ** Fiscal Year July 1, 2007 – June 30, 2008

                Direct link to the public online budget document…

                City of Prescott budget for fiscal year
                July 1, 2007 – June 30, 2008

                http://prescott-az.gov/_d/city_budget_2008.pdf

                On page 394 there are specifics about the ATV purchase being requested for Fiscal Year ( FY ) 2008 via a standard Prescott Fire Department VAR ( Vehicle Acquisition Request )… including COMMENTS being made by Darrell Willis about why it was needed and what it was going to be used for.

                ———————————————
                FY2008 VAR REQUEST

                4×4 All Terrain Vehicle
                Budget: $8,000
                Total Cost: $8,000
                Project Duration: FY2008
                Fund: General Fund

                COMMENTS
                Funds for the purchase of a 500 EFI All Terrain Vehicles and three helmets. The use of an ATV while on wildland fires gives the ability to scout the fire prior to deploying resources. This vehicle also enables the wildland crew to extricate sick or injured firefighters off the line for medical treatment and allows the crew to deliver much needed water and supplies to the crew when they are several miles from the crew vehicles.

                Operating Budget Impact: Operating impact would be minimal.

                Project Budget…

                Life to Date 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
                Total – 8,000 – – – – – 8,000
                Funding Source
                Life to Date 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
                Total
                General Fund – 8,000 – – – – – 8 ,000
                Total – 8,000 – – – – – 8,000
                Annual Operation and Maintenance Budget
                Life to Date 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
                Total – 0000 – – – – – 0000
                ————————————————-

                So that’s where the darn thing CAME from.

                It entered the PFD World via a standard Prescott Fire Department ‘Vehicle Acquisition’ process… so it actually then MUST have been covered under the same Vehicle Replacement Insurance Policies as all other similarly acquired Prescott Fire Department ‘Vehicles’.

                Since the Prescott Wildland Division was already at a MILLION PLUS Budget level… then even if the thing wasn’t covered by insurance we really are still talking “nickle and diming them to death”.

                At a MILLION-PLUS dollar a year operational budget… $8,000 lousy dollars is truly “nickels and dimes”.

                Reply

              • Yes, I realized after I wrote my piece that it left an implied question of whether it would be different with the GMIHC because they were not a federal crew.

                And that is one reason why I would like someone with more budget experience who worked in wildldand fire finance to jump in here, but….here is my best guess.

                It would of course make a difference in how the ATV was originally purchased (whose hard budget dollars paid for it) but I don’t think it should make any difference whatsoever in the fact that the XYZ Fire owed the GMIHC a new ATV ASAP before they went to another fire if not sooner on an emergency requisition order to replace necessary safety related fire preparedness equipment so…I think there is a problem somewhere with this story.

                Because yes…we didn’t need ATV’s but once they become standard equipment and wildland firefighters become reliant on them, their absence can have a significant impact on the efficiency, productivity and safety of a crew as it sounds like it did in this case.

                Reply

                • OK, here is my chance to take a shot at Darrell Willis and the fact that the GMIHC were in my opinion, a “blueprint for disaster.”

                  Although in light of my new rule…”actually more of a guideline than a rule” (Bill Murray in Ghostbusters) I am going to try really hard to choose my words carefully.

                  SOMEBODY e.g., Darrell Willis or Eric Marsh, had to know how the system works and how to work the system Emergency replacement requisitions don’t fill themselves out.

                  Reply

                  • Whoops, I left out the most important part,

                    SOMEBODY e.g., Darrell Willis or Eric Marsh, had to know how the system works and how to work the system Emergency replacement requisitions don’t fill themselves out, “ALONG WITH THE CORRESPONDING JUSTIFICATION.”

                    Although it sounds like Darrell Willis did know how to write a blah, blah, blah, justification.

                    Reply

                    • and one more thing, anytime you can work the word “safety” into a justification it makes the whole thing like a hot potato, everybody defaults to stamping it “approved” and passes it on down the line.

                      Nobody wants to left holding the shit bag when safety goes out the window…right Arizona State Forestry?

                    • Gary I believe you are right on.
                      any Loss do to the fire from Fire fighting equipment is replaceable.
                      You have to file a loss with the Finance section to have it charged to the fire would not make a difference if Federal crew or Pickup Crew Etc.
                      The loss is covered by the fire (Justification Game) as you so eloquently stated.

                      The Key is filing the loss before leaving the fire.

                      Vehicle losses may be different but still chargeable to the Fire charge number. Might require more paper work.

                    • Thanks for jumping in Bob, I was hoping you would, and yes, a vehicle probably gets more scrutiny than almost anything else and I wouldn’t think anybody would place fast and loose with that kind of expenditure but it does sound like the GMIHC lost theirs legitimately.

                      The only other problem I could think of would be ruling the loss as negligence but I would think that would get into something like the crew operator was drunk and took it for a midnight beer run or something ridiculous like that.

                      Other than that, I think the only requirement is that the item was necessary to fight the fire, which of course it was, the old example always used to be, “you need your eyeglasses to fight the fire so we will replace those if they are lost or destroyed, but you don’t need a camera to fight the fire so that loss is on you.”

                      I agree with WTKTT, this issue needs to be cleared up because inquiring minds want to know.

                    • Well…Finance people always fit my description of coffee sippin’, salamander huggin’, camp slugs anyway, although I did like them when they submitted our Fire Time Slips in a timely manner.

                    • >> Gary Olson wrote…
                      >>
                      >>
                      >> I agree with WTKTT, this issue needs
                      >> to be cleared up because inquiring
                      >> minds want to know.

                      See the new PARENT comment above.

                      As it turns out… ADOSH did ask Darrell Willis about the burnup of the GM ATV on the Halstead fire. Willis says it WAS reported, and evaluated by the Safety Officer, and they WERE promised a valid ‘S’ number for replacement…

                      …but then nothing happened ( and ADOSH also didn’t follow up and ask why it wasn’t replaced ).

                      So where does an ‘S’ number ‘get lost’?

                      The STATE FINANCE level?

                      How you do ‘pop loose’ an ‘S’ number when it gets STUCK… and was that all on Willis as DIVCHIEF?

                      Here’s a direct link to the new comment above…

                      http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xv/#comment-298843

              • Well OK then. It should have been a no-brainer and they should have gotten their new ATV before the next fire…period.

                I have never hear of an S number, although if the Halstead Fire was a state fire that might be a good guess.

                And based on my experience, all it takes to get any number busted loose from anybody is the will to do it. And if you don’t have the push to do it, you go to your boss and if your boss is a good boss and he doesn’t have the push to do it, then the shit hits the fan at an Assistant Director Somebody Level and the problem gets fixed ASAP.

                For a piece of equipment that has been deemed to be essential for efficient and safe fire line operations…it can be replaced NOW if the right person makes the phone call, BUT the onus is on the field level supervisor to make that happen and squeal like a stuck pig until it does. If you accept a paper pusher to get to something done mañana, they probably when they will get to it and sometimes mañana never comes.

                Which brings up my favorite bone to chew and what I think is the real third rail in this discussion. Human Factors.

                I always had a few basic guidelines when I was a hotshot…never lose elevation on the slope if you don’t have to, because you are just going to have to hike back up there again and again, never stand up if you can sit down, never sit down if you can lay down and never stay awake if you can sleep, and take the water and food every time it is offered because you don’t know when it will be offered again.

                But then again…some guys liked to show everybody they can hike up and down the hills and through the brush like they are a jack rabbit as Joy says. Just sayin”….

                Reply

                • I actually just looked up the official quote and apparently it comes from Combat Marines in the Western Pacific during World War II and I think it is worth repeating here.

                  I do think there are some similarities between hotshots and U.S. Marines, not Special Forces. My father was a Marine who served in the South Pacific in WWII.

                  Except not all Marines are supposed to come home from war, whereas all hotshots are supposed to come home from a wildfire.

                  Never run when you can walk.
                  Never walk when you can stand.
                  Never stand when you can sit.
                  Never sit when you can lay down.
                  Never lay down when you can sleep.

                  Your welcome.

                  Reply

                  • Ah… but someone who is ambitious or feels they have “something to prove” *might* call that the blueprint for ‘mediocrity’.

                    They might even say that is ‘seeming to be’ rather than ‘being’.

                    As in… the opposite of “Esse quam videri”.

                    THAT person would ‘run instead of walk’..
                    THAT person would ‘walk instead of stand’.
                    THAT person would ‘stand instead of sit’.
                    THAT person would ‘sit’ instead of lie down’
                    THAT person would ‘lay down instead of sleep’.

                    And sometimes ( just maybe )… THAT person would attempt “a bridge too far” and NOT come home when others do.

                    Human Factors.

                    Sometimes that IS the reason bad things happen.

                    Reply

                    • Oh….and one more thing. If you have ever seen any photos of me as a hotshot, then you know my crew knew I would run away with them, but I would never be able to run away without them. Hee, hee as Joy say’s, which I like better than LOL.

                • Oh….and one more thing. All of the bosses I worked for were good USFS District Fire Management Officers, the shit would have hit the fan.

                  So…here’s to Ron Melcher, Hub Harris, Richard Allred and Orlando Romero, if I didn’t say it before, I would like to say it now…Thank you for teaching me how to be a good wildland firefighter, just like all of you were!

                  Reply

  120. **
    ** NO LAND SALE SHOWING ON ARIZONA LAND DEPARTMENT SITE

    Oddly enough… even though the sale/auction of that parcel of land in Yavapai County, Arizona, where the deployment site is located was officially announced in PUBLIC earlier this week…

    …the Arizona State Land Department is NOT listing it as ‘for sale’ on their own website.

    A search for “State Trusts Lands’ for sale in Yavapai County says NOTHING is for sale in that County…

    https://land.az.gov/commercial-sales-leasing/available-properties

    If/when the sale/auction shows up there.. it is supposed to be also showing the time/date of the action and the minimum required bid based on an independent appraisal of its value.

    Reply

    • Update…

      Even though the land sale/auction is NOT showing up on the part of their website that is supposed to list Trust lands that are for sale… the upcoming sale/auction of the land where the deployment site is located IS appearing on another page at the Arizona State Land Department website.

      If you drill-down on their online ‘Auction Schedule’.. that Yavapai County parcel auction on June 30 is showing up there AND showing the ‘minimum bid’ of $304,000…

      From…
      https://land.az.gov/upcoming-auctions

      ————————————————————-
      Upcoming Auctions

      Auction Date: JUN-30-2015 11:00AM TUE
      File #: 53-117361
      Type of Sale: Land Sale
      Location: T10N, R5W, SEC. 9
      County: Yavapai
      City / Cross Street: West of SR89 and West of Yarnell
      Acres: 320
      Minimum Bid: $304,000.00

      Auction Notice: ( Click here for a copy of the Official Auction Notice PDF file )
      ————————————————————-

      NOTE: This same page also has a link that says “CLICK HERE FOR AUCTION RESULTS” and so this will be at least one place that will probably update in real time when the auction is held and show what the results were.

      Oddly enough… this online AUCTION NOTICE doesn’t say exactly WHERE the auction is to take place. I guess interested parties are just to supposed to know that these ‘auctions’ normally take place in the steps of the Courthouse in the same County where the land parcel for sale is located… or something?

      Or.. I guess if you want that detail you’re supposed to click on the PDF ‘Auction Notice’ file and get it from there.

      Still no sign on the Arizona Land Department Site itself whether there are any codified restrictions about is even ALLOWED to enter a bid for a piece of Arizona State Trust Land.

      Perhaps the default really is “anyone with a check that won’t bounce”.

      Reply

      • Followup…

        A couple of interesting things in the PDF file linked to on this ‘Auction Schedule’ at the Arizona State Lands Department ( ASLD ).

        This is NOT the same PDF file that showed up in the newspapers earlier in the week. It is the official ‘Auction Notice’ and has some thing in there which are minimum requirements for bidders…

        https://land.az.gov/sites/default/files/53-117361_notice.pdf

        Apparently… unless you have reviewed the ASLD ( Arizona State Land Department ) ‘sale packet’ regarding this land… OR you can prove you have actually inspected the land parcel yourself… you will not be considered a valid ‘bidder’ for the land.

        Likewise regarding CHECKS.

        No matter what your actual BID will end up being … all valid ‘bidders’ have to show up with a CASHIER’S CHECK for at least 10 percent of the minimum bid for the land plus additional handling costs and what they are calling ‘advertisement fees’. Total for this auction for any valid bidder is a CASHIER’S CHECK for $47,720.

        The ‘highest bidder’ then has 30 days to pay off the balance of the bid.

        Interestingly… still no information about whether ‘foreign agents’ are allowed to be valid bidders and become owners of Arizona land… but there is a blurb in THIS document that within 3 days being the ‘highest bidder’… it has to be shown that you are legally and actively “Doing Business” in the State of Arizona.

        It doesn’t elaborate. That could mean that all you have to have is a simple DBA ( Doing Business As ) record filed with the Arizona Commerce Division, or something.

        What is acutally says in the PDF document is…
        ———————————————————
        (C) Pursuant to A.R.S 37-240(B), the successful bidder must be authorized to
        transact business in the state of Arizona no later than three (3) business days
        after the auction. The successful bidder must sign an affidavit stating it is the
        successful bidder and sign a Certification Statement pursuant to A.R.S. Title
        37 and the Rules of ASLD.
        ———————————————————

        That seems to mean a ‘bidder’ doesn’t necessarily have to have a DBA on file in Arizona before the auction… but if they win the auction the then only have 72 hours to be eligible for that and get one. If that falls through… I guess that means the sale defaults to the NEXT highest bidder who can also be considered the ‘best’ bidder and meet all the legal requirements.

        The ‘Certification’ mentioned above in association with this ability to legally do business in Arizona would also seeem to make it harder for any successful bidder on the land to remain TOTALLY anonymous.

        Reply

  121. Reply to Marti Reed post on June 6, 2015 AT 10:51 PM

    NOTE: This is being carried forward from the thread at the end of the previous Chapter 14 that was discussing what might happen at the deployment site land auction at 11:00 AM this coming June 30… and what the phrase “highest and best bid” might imply.

    :: Marti said…
    ::
    :: So “best” simply could mean “having dollars in the
    :: account this check is written off of.” Makes sense.
    ::
    :: Still, wondering, all things considered, if “best” could
    :: mean one or a number of other things beyond that.

    Yes. It very well could imply a ‘judgement call’ on the part of ?? someone ?? when it comes to what is considered a VALID bid and it does have to do with where that bid is coming from.

    I haven’t searched through all the Arizona statutes, but I’ll bet there is something somewhere that does, in fact, put limitations on what is or isn’t a valid bid for a piece of AZ trust land.

    Absurd example 1: I’m sure if the bidder could be determined to be some undesirable foreign government or terrorist organization… no amount from them would qualify as the “highest and best” bid.

    Ditto on the domestic front.

    If the Westboro Baptist Church shows up to bid for the land… I don’t think any amount from them would ever meet the “highest and best” criteria.

    The really interesting part is that if these kinds of judgement calls are actually allowed… then WHO, exactly, gets to make them?

    Reply

    • AND you would be wrong they are not allowed to discriminate in any fashion the Highest bid gets it. although you are probably right on non US Citizen’s or other countries.
      The Highest Bid is the Best Bit. “Highest and Best” has nothing to do with meeting a criteria.
      If a check is written and passes the Bank it is Sold no matter who or for what purpose.

      It is the same as the Lease bidding. for instance Severial pieces of State grazing .allotments came up for bid a couple of years ago in Idaho. A organization against grazing out bid the Rancher who had had the allotment for severial years. The bid stood although the group was not going to graze the allotments. They now have those Allotments for 10 years. There was nothing the State could do. Basically the same with a sale.

      Reply

      • Copy that.

        I think you know more about this than I do.

        Additional question: So who actually OWNS these lands that are in ‘State Trust’?

        Each parcel of ‘State Trust’ land has a designated ‘beneficiary’.

        In the case of this south half of Section 9, Township 10 north, Range 05 west… it’s the Arizona School System.

        But who is ( at present ) the defacto OWNER?

        I think you explained this process before in the other Chapter but I wasn’t 100 percent clear on ‘ownership’.

        Is it still the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT that is the actual OWNER of these ‘State Trust’ parcels… until they pass on to another legitimate OWNER via this ‘auction’ process that’s about to take place?

        Reason I ask is that if that is the case… then I imagine the FEDS might be able to put restrictions on whether certain ‘Foreign agents’ are able to become actual OWNERS of ‘State Trust’ land.

        Reply

        • There are severial ID names for the State Trust lands.
          School Sections
          Rail Road sections–Land donated to the State by Rail Roads as they were built.
          State Land
          School Trust /State Trust

          At State Hood the Federal Government Gave the States Sections 640 Acers on Each Town Ship and Range Normally Sections 16 and 36.
          Rail roads also gave the State sections/strips/ pieces for putting in a Rail Line
          in conjunction with the Federal Government.

          All of these lands were for School trusts.
          The State owns the Land but any income Lease or Sale goes to the School System. As you can guess the way they were allocated many are in the middle of no where. In National Forests in Wilderness areas With no road access other than on foot/4×4 or Horse back. Thus the Grazing allotments.
          Most of the Prime ones in or near towns have been auctioned off and developed. The others sit and wait for development some may never be sold
          The BLM way back and the Federal Government Opened Home Steads.
          Some of those were taken back by the State for Taxes and held or resold I am not sure if any of those became school lands or just private land.

          A reference pull up a National Forest Map and you will see the sections 16 and 36 all over the place if they are designated Private then they were sold to a private individual or company You will see the same sections on BLM or surrounded by private land It is a interesting checkerboard of land.
          In Idaho the State also Sells Timber on the land when there is road access.
          That happens in many States where quality timber is harvested as well.

          I have never paid that close attention to the Sales and requirements just over the years seen the Leasing and Sale of this type of land. So the Specifics are some where in the State Laws. So all the above is just my general Knowledge.
          The State sets a minimum bid and mostly the ones with a personal interest bid.
          Ranchers mostly or an occasional Developer or Timber Company. Or in this case a Memorial which then brings us back to land locked access for any of this type of land.

          Reply

          • WTKTT and Bob~

            I’m not getting that from when I did a WHOLE lot of reading about the Arizona Trust lands.

            And I’m writing this off the top of my head while being in an on-line class and not looking back at all the stuff I bookmarked.

            MY UNDERSTANDING is that, like the Trust my father set up before he died, the PROPERTY inside the Trust is owned BY THE TRUST. So for Arizona State Trust lands, the land is NOT OWNED by the State of Arizona, but by the State Land Trust.

            That is exactly WHY that land could not just be TRANSFERRED to Arizona State Parks. That’s exactly why it HAS to go through this SALE process. The TRUST owns the land, not the State.

            Before my mom died, I was the second in line as one of two beneficiaries, and I was also the Trustee. But the property was still OWNED by the trust, not us beneficiaries, nor me as Trustee.

            The property (two houses, a half-million dollar coin collection, and a bank account) is still legally owned by the Trust, as Terra and I have not had time yet to get ourselves to a Lawyer and do the paperwork to pass the Property on to me personally. And when we do that, I will set up another Trust with Terra as the sole beneficiary.

            The Trust will still own the property. Just as, I think, the Arizona State Land Trust owns that piece of land west of Yarnell, not the State of Arizona.

            I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. Different states have different laws, as they were created at different times, and at the time Arizona and New Mexico became states, and these laws were created and put into effect, this is how the US government determined it was best to do this.

            And it was quite different than it had been done before. Partly because just making Arizona and New Mexico states (it took 50 friggin years of fighting to do it) was so so extremely controversial — WAY more so than had been the case with earlier states.

            Because……………………………”Mexicans.”

            I kid you not.

            Reply

            • Reply to Marti Reed post on June 8, 2015 at 1:04 pm

              >> Marti Reed said…
              >>
              >> WTKTT and Bob~
              >> I’m not getting that from when I did a WHOLE lot of
              >> reading about the Arizona Trust lands.
              >>
              >> MY UNDERSTANDING is that, like the Trust my father
              >> set up before he died, the PROPERTY inside the Trust
              >> is owned BY THE TRUST. So for Arizona State Trust
              >> lands, the land is NOT OWNED by the State of Arizona,
              >> but by the State Land Trust.

              Perhaps… but in the following online scholarly paper about this entire ‘Land Trust’ thing, dating back to its 1785 origins, it actually tends to suggest the following…

              YES.. the Federal Government ‘granted’ lands to new States that were entering the Union.

              YES… these ‘land grants’ were to be considered ‘In Trust’ and the benefits of any leases or sales of the lands had to go to specific, designated beneficiaries.

              YES… the ‘Grantor’ ( the Federal Government ) was still to be considered the de-facto OWNER of the land until it legally passed on to some other ‘owner’ via a legitimate sale/auction.

              The whole ‘State Land Trust Department’ thing was just the ‘managing entity’ and was never to be considered the OWNER of the land grants themselves.

              Here is that scholarly paper that is REALLY worth reading… and REALLY seems to know what it is talking about…

              Center on Education Policy
              Public Schools and the Original Federal Land Grant Program
              A Background Paper from the Center on Education Policy
              http://www.cep-dc.org/cfcontent_file.cfm?attachment=usher_paper_federallandgrants_041311.pdf

              This one line from the paper is where it establishes that ALL of these ‘State Trust Lands’ can be referred to as ‘federal holding’ lands.

              “87% of lands in Nevada and 75% in Arizona are in federal holding.”

              So it calls them FEDERAL HOLDING LANDS.

              This choice of words on their part is implying that, technically, even though these lands were ‘granted’ to the States under a ‘Trust’ system with designated benficiaries for the parcels.. and that the STATE gets to keep the money from the LEASE of these lands… they really are still considered to be “FEDERAL HOLDING LANDS” and still actually in the POSSESSION of the original Grantor ( The Federal Government )?

              Soooo.. still a little confused here as to ACTUAL ‘ownership’ of these lands until they are actually sold at auction to some ACTUAL (other) owner.

              Reply

              • Marti a little confusing but the State still runs the Trust Lands
                Kind of like splitting hairs over the management the State must operate with in the Trust thus the confusion.

                Reply

                • I still think that, prior to an actual SALE.. whether the ‘Grantor’ ( The Federal Government ) or the ‘Grantee’ ( Any particular State ) is to be considered the de-facto OWNER of the land parcel in question is an interesting legal point…

                  …but the bottom line here is that doesn’t much matter.

                  What is GOING to happen at 11:00 AM on the morning of June 30, 2015 is that SOMEONE ELSE is going to become the de-factor OWNER of the bottom half of Section 9 in Township 10 North, Range 05 West.

                  I just sincerely hope that is the State of Arizona.

                  If anyone ELSE becomes the OWNER of that land where the deployment site is located… things are going to get WEIRD.

                  Reply

          • Reply to Bob Powers post on June 8, 2015 at 6:57 am

            Great information on the ‘Trust Lands’ thing. Thank you.

            >> Bob Powers
            >>
            >> There are severial ID names for the State Trust lands.
            >> School Sections Rail Road sections–Land donated to the
            >> State by Rail Roads as they were built.

            Yes. Did some research and the Railroads were involved just as the Federal Government was in ‘granting’ these lands to the States in the first place.

            >> Bob Powers also said…
            >>
            >> At State Hood the Federal Government Gave the States
            >> Sections 640 Acers on Each Town Ship and Range
            >> Normally Sections 16 and 36.

            Yes.. and keyword is ‘gave’. When it comes to actual ownership, it would appear that the States do, technically OWN the land… but it is with all the caveats that come with a ‘Trust Grant’ that has ‘beneficiaries’. It doesn’t meant they can just “do whatever they want” with the land.

            Actually… a couple of states seemed to have gone to court over this actual arrangement and argued that they had no obligations ( legally speaking ) to observe these ‘Trust Agreements’. I believe it was California and Oregon but I don’t know what the final outcome of all of that was.

            It wasn’t Arizona, anyway.

            Arizona is still fully obligated to follow the ‘Trust’ part of any legal handling of these ‘Trust Lands’. They can’t just ‘take’ the land and ‘give’ it to themselves or Arizona State Parks Department.

            The original beneficiary for that ‘Trust’ parcel HAS to be compensated.

            As for the fascinating ‘Sections 16 and 36’ thing… there is this in an online document about ‘Trust Lands’ ( link is below in the LONG STORY section )…

            —————————————————–
            In 1857, Minnesota was the first state to be granted two sections (16 and 36) per township for the use of schools, as well as 72 sections for a university.
            —————————————————–

            >> Bob Powers also said…
            >>
            >> I have never paid that close attention to the Sales and
            >> requirements just over the years seen the Leasing and
            >> Sale of this type of land. So the Specifics are some
            >> where in the State Laws.

            Yes. As it turns out… the actual official ‘Auction Announcement’ for this parcel that has appeared on the Arizona Land Department website says ‘specifically’ that in order to even be a valid ‘bidder’ for the land… the “highest, best” bid must be from someone who is also licensed to do business in the State of Arizona. If they don’t have this sort of DBA status ( Doing Business As ) on-file with the Arizona Commerce Department… they “highest, best” bidder has 3 business days following the sale to GET this valid DBA status… or their bid is no good.

            That means there ARE a lot of other ‘requirements’ involved for someone to qualify as not only the ‘highest’ bidder for an Arizona State Land Trust parcel… but to also qualify as the ‘best’ (valid) bidder.

            So that is ( as you say ) ‘somewhere in the State Laws’ and also has to do with WHO is allowed to ‘Transact Business’ in the State of Arizona.

            I have not gone off and starting wading through THOSE Arizona statues… but I can tell you right now that in this day and age… and when it comes to “Foreign Agents” or “Cartels” trying to register to do business anywhere in this country… the now pre-pubescent Homeland Security Agency can ( and does ) have something to say about that.

            The wild scenarios I can imagine don’t actually involve any kind of ‘Foreign Government’ actually trying to acquire those 320 acres in Yarnell. I was thinking more along the lines of some KOOK in some foreign country with more money than he knows what to do with just getting some hair-brained idea that he would like to own that land.

            If he can ALSO qualify as someone legally able to “Transact Business” in the State of Arizona ( In other words… if he passes all other Federal, Homeland Security and Arizona State and Commerce Department regulations )… then yes… someone like that COULD come out of the woodwork and be bidding for the land.

            Not likely. But on the wild side of things… still possible.

            >> Bob Powers also said…
            >>
            >> So all the above is just my general Knowledge.
            >> The State sets a minimum bid and mostly the ones with
            >> a personal interest bid. Ranchers mostly or an occasional
            >> Developer or Timber Company.

            Copy that.

            The keyphrase here is “personal interest” and there’s no doubt that this is an unusual sale/auction for an unusual piece of land.

            It’s the place where an HISTORIC event took place.

            At the moment DPS Officer/Medic Eric Tarr radioed up from the deployment site… “I have 19 confirmed fatalities”, that site at THAT spot, in THAT parcel of land, took on some VERY special significance and also, at that moment, Yarnell had changed and ( despite what some residents are still not realizing ) would never be the same again.

            So it’s not just some stupid piece of grazing land.

            It’s (now) far more than that… which is what makes this auction unusual.

            There is still every chance in the world that someone ( or some group ) with ( as you said ) “personal interest” in the land could come out of the woodwork on June 30, 2015… and be bidding on that land in pursuit of their own ‘personal agendas’.

            The minimum bid of $304,000 is basically ‘peanuts’ these days in real-estate circles… especially for a full 320 acres.

            Even the KNOWN upper limit of $500,000 to be sure that the Arizona Memorial Board doesn’t get the land is basically ‘peanuts’ these days.

            I hope it all goes well.. and that the State of Arizona DOES become the full and final owner of this piece of land… and that Arizona State Park System becomes responsible for it. That really is the BEST thing that can happen give the HISTORIC nature of this piece of property.

            ** THE LONG(ER) STORY

            Some fascinating ‘reads’ out there about all this ‘Land Trust’ stuff.

            From a Wikipedia article about ‘Land Trusts’…

            ————————————————————————–
            Land trusts have been around at least since Roman times but their clearest history is from the time of King Henry VIII in England. At that time, people used land trusts to hide their ownership of land so they would not have to serve in the military or fulfill other obligations of land ownership. For example, an elder uncle would hold his nephew’s land so he would not have to join the king’s army.
            —————————————————————————

            Amazingly… this idea that ‘Land Trusts’ should go to the support of Public Education goes all the way back to the ‘General Land Ordinance of 1785’ that first established this rectangular ‘Range, Township, Section’ method of dividing up public domain lands in the new nation… and was also further codified in the ‘Northwest Ordinance of 1787’.

            So yet another amazingly intelligent and forward-looking idea on the part of the ‘forefathers’ of this country.

            In most cases… the money from the legitimate SALE of the State Trust Lands to private ownership does NOT go directly to the designated beneficiary. The money from the sale goes into another general ‘trust fund’ and the beneficiaries receive the INTEREST payments from the money being made off of that general fund.

            Continued next message…

            Reply

            • Arizona is one of the states that has this ‘General Fund’ thing.

              Center on Education Policy
              Public Schools and the Original Federal Land Grant Program
              A Background Paper from the Center on Education Policy
              http://www.cep-dc.org/cfcontent_file.cfm?attachment=usher_paper_federallandgrants_041311.pdf

              The whole ‘Section 16 and 32’ thing is explained in this section…
              ——————————————————
              In 1857, Minnesota was the first state to be granted two sections (16 and 36) per township for the use of schools, as well as 72 sections for a university. Many other states followed suit. After Utah was admitted in 1894, states began receiving four sections per township, with the exception of Oklahoma, which received only two. (The appendix also shows the specific sections allocated to each state.)
              —————————————————–

              More detail from the paper…
              —————————————————–
              Summary

              From the late 18th century through the middle of the 20th century, the federal government granted control of millions of acres of federal land to each state as it entered the Union. These lands were given in trust, with the stipulation that proceeds from their sale or lease be used to support various public institutions.

              Several key points can be drawn from this paper:

              Federal support for public schools is not a modern concept. Rather, it goes back more than two centuries to the time of George Washington and the nation’s founding. Two early federal Acts—the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787—granted federal lands to new states and set aside a portion of those lands to be used to fund public schools.

              Changes in Grants Over Time

              Other land grant policies also evolved over time. One such policy was the amount of land reserved for schools. As noted above, the Land Ordinance first established land grants for schools that consisted of one section of every township, section 16. In 1816, the Enabling Act for Indiana included grants for a “seminary of learning.” setting a precedent for university land grants in later states. Indiana received a total of 36 sections, or the equivalent of one township, for its higher education seminary, while many later states received 72 sections, or two townships, for universities. In 1857, Minnesota was the first state to be granted two sections (16 and 36) per township for the use of schools, as well as 72 sections for a university. Many other states followed suit.

              After Utah was admitted in 1894, states began receiving four sections per township, with the exception of Oklahoma, which received only two. (The appendix also shows the specific sections allocated to each state.)
              —————————————————–

              Many States started to mismanage the Trust Lands or sell them off too early for quick profits ( and too cheaply to ‘friends’ of politicians ) so the ‘rules’ tightened up as more States entered the Union.

              Later on in the paper we learn that by the time Utah and Arizona entered the Union there were strict rules about the leasing and sale of Trust Lands…

              —————————————————–
              By the time New Mexico and Arizona were admitted to the Union, their acts included incredibly detailed provisions that specified rules for the leasing of the land, the size and price of the lands that could be sold, the time periods during which the lands could be auctioned, and the appraisal of the lands’ “true value” prior to auction (Culp et al., 2005).
              —————————————————–

              Michigan was the first state to come up with the idea that the proceeds from the sale of State Trust Lands should NOT go directly to the designated beneficiaries… but rather into another General ‘Trust Fund’ set up to make money for the beneficiaryon an ongoing basis and the beneficiary would receive the INTEREST payments being made on that ‘General Fund’.

              Arizona is one of those states utilizing this ‘General Fund’ concept.

              Also from the document…
              —————————————————–
              The state of Michigan came up with a unique method to address the problem of grant mismanagement, which was then adopted by many other states. Michigan’s innovation was to establish a permanent fund into which the proceeds from the sale of trust lands would be invested. The interest from that fund, combined with rental revenues from the lands, would be returned to the schools.

              Of those states that maintained a permanent fund, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wyoming all had monetary levels over $500 million as of 1990.
              —————————————————–

              Originally, the States were always just supposed to ‘lease’ the ‘Trust’ lands being granted to them by the Federal Government… but as States entered the Union and wrote their own Constitutions… some States gave themselves the option of SELLING the ‘Trust’ Lands.

              This paper point out that Arizona, specifically, got into trouble with this ‘sale’ provision early on and while they made a lot of money selling lots of Trust lands to developers, they then ( of course ) got over-burdended on having to support Public Edcuation from the general TAX fund.

              —————————————————–
              Sales Versus Leasing of the Grant Lands

              As explained above, the language governing management of the land grants evolved over time (Fairfax et al., 1992). The early Enabling Acts simply stated that trustees should lease their grant lands. In the 1840s, when states were designated as the trustees, they added provisions to their constitutions specifying what states could do with the lands provisions that were later incorporated into future states’ Enabling Acts (Souder & Fairfax, 1996).

              In 1827, Ohio asked Congress to allow the state to sell the lands rather than lease them, a provision that became standard thereafter.

              Interestingly, many states with the granted lands that have recently become valuable may have gotten overambitious in their attempts to generate revenue for their trusts.

              Arizona, for example, sold much of its empty land during a boom in residential development. This generated a large amount of revenue but put inordinate amounts of pressure on the school system from an influx of many new residents, thus negating the financial benefits of selling the land (S. Fairfax, personal correspondence, February 17, 2011).

              The Colorado Enabling Act of 1875 was the first to put restrictions on the method and price at which the lands could be sold, a policy included in the Enabling Act for every state that followed except Utah.

              Although at first it was assumed that the federal government would eventually dispose of all public domain lands—a policy not officially renounced until the 1970s—it became clear over time that this would not happen. The states followed suit by retaining their lands as well. As a result, many of the states that joined the Union later still hold more of their school trust lands than the older states do. Though they favor retention as a rule, states still sell and exchange the lands as they see fit (Fairfax et al., 1992).

              The grant lands in many regions continue to play a crucial role in the schools. The states created before 1850 have sold all or most of their granted lands. California, which joined the Union in 1850, now retains only 10% of its original grant lands. On the other hand, newer states still hold a majority of their grant lands; approximately 87% of lands in Nevada and 75% in Arizona are in federal holding.
              —————————————————————

              So Arizona is one of those states that still has PLENTY of these ‘State Trust Lands’… but notice something interesting that this scholarly paper says here in that last sentence with reference to ‘ownership’.

              The very last sentence says…

              “87% of lands in Nevada and 75% in Arizona are in federal holding.”

              It calls them FEDERAL HOLDING LANDS.

              This choice of words on their part is implying that, technically, even though these lands were ‘granted’ to the States under a ‘Trust’ system with designated benficiaries for the parcels.. and that the STATE gets to keep the money from the LEASE of these lands… they really are still considered to be “FEDERAL HOLDING LANDS” and still actually in the POSSESSION of the original Grantor ( The Federal Government )?

              Soooo.. still a little confused here as to ACTUAL ‘ownership’ of these lands until they are actually sold at auction to some ACTUAL (other) owner.

              Reply

              • Not sure if you are confused or your info is confusing me
                Federal holding lands to my knowledge are the current lands under management of the National Forests — The BLM and National Parks and National Reserves with in a State there is a current movement to take these lands over by the different western States. However at Statehood the states signed a declaration which they had no clame on the Federal lands with in the State Boundary. Thus the Sage Brush Rebellion With States wanting to take over management of all but National Parks. But that is another subject.

                The State school sections are under state control and not under Federal Holdings.as is any other State Lands.

                Your 87% Nevada and 75% Arizona are Federal lands as noted above I off the top of my head believe 87% In Idaho– these again are BLM. FS. NPS, and NWLR lands.
                Hope that helps.

                Reply

                • Addition and Clarification—The Federal Government HOLDS ownership—thus Federal Holding Lands,

                  Different from State Trust Lands. The Federal Government Dose Not Own Those Lands Nor Manage Them in any way shape or form.

                  Reply

                  • Copy that.

                    I am just reporting what that scholarly document from the Center for Education says and the percentages they are quoting for what they deem to call FEDERAL HOLDING lands do, in fact, include both the BLM stuff AND the ‘land grants’ we are trying to refer to here as ‘State Trust Lands’.

                    The question of who is the defacto OWNER ( and not just the manager ) of some ‘land grants’… as in… the ‘Grantor’ ( The FEDS ) or the ‘Grantee’ ( The STATE ) is still an interesting legal question… but bottom line is it doesn’t matter.

                    At 11:00 AM on the morning of June 30, 2015… SOMEONE is going to become the defacto NEW OWNER of the south half of Section 9, Township 10 North, Range 05 West.

                    I just hope that turns out to be the State of Arizona.

                    If anyone OTHER than the State of Arizona becomes the NEW OWNER of that parcel of land where the deployment site is located… things are gonna get WEIRD.

                    Reply

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