Unexpected fire behavior, chronic understaffing, a lack of highly trained employees and a new policy to put out fires quickly were among the factors that contributed to the deaths of four helicopter firefighters while battling a blaze in the west of the country. Colorado in Juneaccording to a report released by the US Department of the Interior.
The firefighters, working for the U.S. Forest Service and the newly created U.S. Wildland Fire Service, were part of a interinstitutional response to the Knowles Fire which merged with others to form the Snyder Fire on the Colorado/Utah border. The Rifle Helitack crew had been dropped in a remote area to work a fire line, but became trapped when high winds blew the fires in their direction and overtook them.
Their deaths came after the Trump administration restarted a previously discredited policy to quickly extinguish all forest fires. Decisions on how to fight the Knowles Fire were driven by a desire to prevent the spread of cheatgrass and protect sage grouse habitat and a downwind community, the report said.
These factors “established an organizational posture to aggressively suppress new startups, even small ones,” the report said. “It was this political framework that motivated the decision to send helicopter firefighters on small departures into the wilderness on a day when extreme weather conditions were forecast for the fires.”
Emily Barker, Nick Hutcherson and Sydney Watson were killed at the scene while Nathan Matthews suffered burns and died on July 24. A fifth firefighter on the team was burned but survived.
Ron and Lisa Hutcherson, Nick’s parents, said the team should not have been sent out before the fire because dangerous winds were forecast. After meeting with investigators and touring the scene, they said they believe the deaths were preventable and were caused by a lack of leadership and oversight.
“Telling us how the fire got to our son doesn’t answer why he was still there,” Ron Hutcherson said in an email to The Associated Press. “Who was monitoring the whole situation? Who was responsible for getting these firefighters home while there was still time?”
Lisa Hutcherson added: “My son depended on the people responsible for monitoring the fire that threatened him and making the decisions necessary to keep him safe. We want answers and we want accountability.”
Communication breakdowns with trainees at the helm
The serious accident investigation report details the circumstances that led to the decision to send the Helitack team and the numerous issues that led to their deaths.
Several lightning fires ignited June 27 in the Black Ridge Canyon Wilderness Area of Colorado. The region was experiencing extreme drought conditions and winds were picking up.
A response team orchestrated coverage of the various fires by calling in planes and crews. At one point, the official in charge ordered all planes to fire Jones, but constant high winds challenged all pilots that day, with many saying it was the most difficult flight of their careers, according to the report.
By early afternoon, communications systems failed and numerous trainee dispatchers attempted to coordinate operations. There was also confusion over who would follow the planes.
“Dispatchers simultaneously tracked up to 16 active aircraft, three emergent incidents, multiple new departures, county river evacuations, and incessant media requests, leading to severe cognitive task saturation,” the report states. “Due to constant radio congestion and high workload, dispatchers felt they were unable to transmit the mandatory 1,000-hour fire weather forecast broadcast throughout the area. »
Incident commanders on the Snyder and Jones fires did not have clear information on the location of firefighters on the Knowles and Gore fires to the east, the report said.
“As no operational role was assigned to continuously map the location of personnel in relation to emerging fire trajectories, firefighters did not recognize that firefighters were positioned directly in the line of advance of the fire,” the report states.
A large fire about eight miles west of the helicopter crew was observed three and a half hours before the entrapment, according to the report. In less than three hours, the fire spread over complex terrain and reached the five firefighters, who were forced to deploy fire shelters due to the lack of a helicopter which could not reach them in time.
Family wants to know why crew was exposed to deteriorating conditions
The Hutcherson family met with fire investigators in Grand Junction on Oct. 26 for a three-hour formal reading of the report, they said. The review described a failure of lookouts, communications, escape routes and safety zones, they said.
An aging mobile radio system and software failures have compromised official channels during critical operations, the family was told. Overlapping transmissions and confusing radio traffic forced firefighters to use cell phones to communicate.
The Knowles fire occurred in a remote location, the family said, so the central question remains: “What justifies keeping this crew exposed while communication, observation and extraction options deteriorate?” »
Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of the nonprofit Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, said the problem can be traced to the Trump administration’s all-out enforcement policy, which has incentivized crews across the country to take unreasonable risks.
“It was outrageous to have a policy of completely suppressing a lightning-caused wildfire to prevent the spread of cheatgrass,” Ingalsbee said. “The policy that is leading to this aggressive attack on all fires is an outdated paradigm that is simply unsustainable humanly or ecologically. And unfortunately, this crew paid the ultimate price, the ultimate sacrifice.”
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