From one moment to the next our environment is changing,
most changes are small and seem insignificant but each
change sets off a ripple which intersects
with other ripples and so on.
As they build and intersect with one another, they can
develop into one unexpected, dramatic change.
Many of these changes go unnoticed by us, until they
intersect, building enough momentum to get our attention.
Consider that our environment is more than just the fire
environment; it includes humans and equipment all
setting off ripples.
So it isn't hard to believe that perceptional blind spots
and degraded situation awareness will happen.
With that said, you can safely conclude that the organization
will eventually be surprised.
When that happens, it is imperative for us to respond
and bounce back swiftly and effectively.
This is what happened on the Indians Fire in central
California last summer.
A giant fire whirl worked its way over the top of a group of
firefighters creating an environment of
complete disarray.
While we can look back at what happened and identify
firefighter oversights, the outcome could have
been much worse.
Despite the chaos, firefighters demonstrated resilience
and an ability to adapt quickly to an unforeseen event.
On June 11, 2008, at approximately 1630, members of
the Fulton Hotshots and Los Padres Engine 71 found
themselves standing on Milpitas Road in disbelief at
the fire behavior event they had just experienced.
No one could explain how the fury of the
giant fire whirl had dissipated to nothing just
as quickly as it had overrun them.
The day of the fire whirl temperatures warmed quickly,
into the 90's and relative humidity
dropped to single digits.
Firefighters were told to expect spotting and sustained
runs that would test containment lines.
No Red Flag Watches or Warnings were issued for the area.
The fire had grown to five thousand acres.
Jim Smith's Type Two Incident Management Team was in place.
By 0800 Division Charlie was fully staffed.
At approximately 0900, crews began a burnout operation to
establish a safety zone near the Charlie / Delta division
break; by 1100 they were done.
One of their incident objectives was to keep the
fire north of the San Antonio River.
To ensure this, crews were instructed to burn
east along Milpitas Road.
This is where we'll pick up the stories of
the Fulton Hotshots and Engine 71.
Okay the resources that were in our division on June 11
we've worked with before in prior years
so we all knew each other.
All the captains knew each other
all the sups knew each other.
Our vegetation types were much like you see here this grass
component right here, knee high.
We are actually in part of the fire area, across the road
here is one of our contingency lines and has the same fuel
type, same kind of oak overstory, canopy, and as you
get higher up we get into a brush component, thicker
chaparral, chemise, is scattered throughout here, but
predominately what you see here is our fuel type we were
conducting the firing operation in.
We understood the plan was to take fire from the crews that
are working up the road here and pick it up from them and
head east along the Milpitas Road.
We started off with briefing the guys; used the black as we
went for our safety zone.
I personally contacted division sup, air attack and
division sup contacted operations and
everything was a go on firing.
At approximately 1200, the Fulton Hotshots initiated
their section of the burnout operation, with the main
objective; to carry fire east along Milpitas Road,
staying ahead of the fire.
The burnout was to be supervised by Louie Arosco and
Josh Acosta, both foremen with Fulton.
Josh has the main fire now, the firing off in this
direction the main activity is still up on the slope and it's
moving this way, right along parallel with our operation.
We stayed even with it and somewhat a just little bit
ahead of it if we could and just kept
the firing going down the road.
It was doing pretty good for us, we had winds at our back
and pretty good communications with Ron on what was going on
in out in front of us.
We got Fulton bringing fire down the road here; try to get
out in front of this.
This is coming, to hit the road, but we're dragging fire
this way, towards us, to try and get out in front of it
and slow it down.
[radio chatter] Yeah, we'd like for an aerial platform
just to be eyes in the sky, can tell us where some spots
are, if they're farther than we can see 'em.
Ok, I understand, very good.
I can do that.
During this whole operation I never really
felt in an unsafe situation.
When I started, when I took the firing show from Josh, I
saw the activity was increasing.
That's one of the biggest fire whirls I've seen.
Look at it turning on itself.
It goes way up! Ron Bollier and the Engine 71
crew are now just west of the corrals.
Louie drags fire by them, moving east on Milpitas Road
still outflanking the column.
Josh and his squad are further west, holding on the road.
Coming down the road, lighting, ripping off.
Trying to get out ahead of it.
The wind that this column is creating is unreal; it's
probably 20 mile per hour winds.
We had another spot initiate about 150 yards
down the road here.
Engine 71 Captain Roberto and me were standing here;
his engine was facing this way.
We made eye contact, right next to each other;
we knew what needed to be done.
He knew and he rounded up his guys and he went to go engage.
We had a spot down the road about 300 feet
and I took three of my firefighters with me.
First I had one of the firefighters back the engine up.
From there the firefighter caught up to us.
The engine followed behind us.
It was a 10 by 10 spot right off the road.
Very easy to handle, just squirt a little water on it
and we would have been done with it.
Got about 150 to 200 feet from the engine.
No further than that and that is when
everything just came at us.
So we went and turned the truck around, Frankie and I
turned the truck around and I looked forward because I was
going to pull up and get behind Frankie and the winds
just laid over; the smoke just laid over, and all of if just
starting pulling in towards where the guys were and I
finally got straightened out in the road, this is within
seconds, all this stuff just happened
so fast it was unreal.
There was a big limb that pretty much got plucked right
off a tree and landed in the road and threw, little spots
just right off the road and then as I was going towards
where the guys were, I got on the radio and tried to get a
hold of Burt and say, "Hey there's a,
you got a spot behind ya."
And I couldn't really hear, at that time I couldn't even hear
myself talk it was so windy, it was shaking the truck,
everything was, rocks and everything, limbs were flying
around just hitting the truck.
The winds were so powerful we couldn't even hear the engine,
the engine behind us.
It just got dark all of a sudden and windy and hot.
My concern was to try to get out of there.
I looked to the left, out in this field here, and I mean
within seconds it literally was area ignition and I've
only seen that once before and that was from a long ways away
So I proceeded past the limb and through the smoke and
seeing that I couldn't see anything because it was so
black and dark, couldn't hear anything besides all the
rumbling and stuff just flying around hitting the truck and
just chaos in there.
I wasn't getting any response back from Burt and all them so
I didn't know exactly where they were so I went down
trying to get 'em because it wasn't, the flames weren't
big, they weren't touching the truck, they weren't going
across the road, it was just all radiant heat ,convection
or whatever you wanna call; it was hot!
The giant fire whirl has reached wind speeds
of an F1 tornado.
It's smoke and heat-filled center lays over the top of
the Engine 71 guys as they struggle to escape.
The two Fulton Hotshot squads were experiencing the effects
of the fire whirl in an entirely different way,
dodging debris and fighting to get back to their trucks.
Once the winds picked up to what I guessed to be 80 miles
an hour, we had branches of oaks 10-15 inch DBH branches
flying off, coming off the trees and flying across the road.
We had a couple of my guys on the crew out ahead about 40-50
yards and would walk back and tie into one of our guys and
as they were coming back to us, I remember I was yelling
at them to hurry up and come back towards me
and get by the trucks.
They were trying to run and they could not even run
because the wind was so strong.
At that point from directly due east it's crystal clear I
am in unburned fuel and I am getting hit by I'm not sure
what it is, it feels like a thousand bees hitting you.
Not stinging, just getting pelted by dime size
or quarter size stuff.
I am looking straight into blue sky and
I am going what in the heck.
Everything is back here and all of a sudden I get hit and
with thousands of them.
All of a sudden one goes down my shirt
and I go oh, that's hot embers.
So the column it appeared to me to be sucking, for more
oxygen it was pulling itself out of this drainage back
behind us pulling everything out coming back through here
and then drawing back into itself.
That point in time I looked up and the column
was now starting to lean.
As I tried to work my way back to the truck I had to bend
down and hang on and go because I am in the green here
40 feet from the truck.
I am thinking I gotta get to the truck because I do not
want to be in the green especially
with the hot embers going everywhere.
I'm telling you, limbs are blowing off, it is 80 mph
winds, and I say it and it is in the report if a cow flew by
me it would not have surprised me.
I am dead serious; it would not even have phased me.
Big things were in the air!
The smoke was, real hard to see, we were blind,
couldn't see anything.
The heat was extreme, hard to breath, you know.
Just trying to figure a way out, you know.
How to breath in there, it was tough.
We thought that was it there, you know,
because it was so hard to breath.
I thought they were going to pick us up off the ground
there, off the pavement, you know.
Hands were burnt, felt embers on my neck.
Looked at the pavement and thought, I guess this
is it for us, you know.
What a present, what a present to the family, you know.
After that I just remembered my training, fire shelter
training and started breathing calmly and taking short breaths.
We couldn't hear anything so I just pulled my shelter,
showed the guys the shelter so they followed
after me with what I did.
So we decided to wrap 'em around ourselves and walk out
with the, you know, put 'em over ourselves, over our heads
and that was a big-big relief you know.
At that time I was able to breathe and it was cool
underneath the fire shelter so we just turned around and just
started walking back with it.
At the same time I was looking back, looking for my other
firefighter that wasn't around.
As the crew is caught in the chaos of the fire whirl,
Engine 71 crewmember Chris Lyons finds himself separated
from the group and runs back down the road,
struggling to open his fire shelter.
I finally got to a point, it was probably about 50 to 60
feet after the limb that was down back here and that's
where I picked up Chris Lyons and I couldn't see him,
I almost ran him over.
I couldn't see him, he was running out of the smoke
because for some reason I got a break in the smoke at that
time and he was running out and he pretty much ran into
the bumper, looked at me, I could see him, he had drool
everywhere, couldn't barely breathe and he ran to the
passenger door and swung it open and jumped in and as soon
as he opened that door it felt like
someone just turned the oven on.
It was so hot couldn't even explain it.
I told him to shut that door and lay down.
And the first things out of his mouth is,
"Get the !?>! out of here!" and I just kind of looked at him
and asked "Where's the guys?" and he's all, "I don't
know, they're back there."
And I was all, "how far?" and he's all, "I don't know?"
I was all, "where'd you leave them at,
"I don't know, just get outta here."
I was like "where's the guys?" and he didn't want to
answer me after that.
So I paused there for a second and kind of looked in front of
me and it was like driving through totally fog, can't see
nothin', so I didn't know what to do, I had another guy with
me and I don't know what's in front of me and I don't want
nothin to land behind me and get me stuck
where it burns the truck up.
And I can't see the guys, I don't know if they went the
opposite way that Chris did, I had no clue.
So I just made a decision there to just back out.
Meanwhile the Division Supervisor has a compelling
urge to drive east on Milpitas Road.
As he drives through the fire whirl, he finds it difficult
to see in the dense smoke and flying debris.
He sees of flash of light from his headlights
reflecting off of a fire shelter.
He pulls alongside Roberto and his guys
and yells at them to get in...
The Division Sup. called and asked me how many
people I had and I said one and myself.
And I seen them come out of the smoke and I was in total
relief by then because I seen all three
of them sitting in there.
What scared me the most is when they came around the
truck and I could see that they were burned.
I didn't say anything to them cause I didn't wanna make em
freak and a couple of em jumped in the truck.
And then I seen Burt kind of walk off a little bit and then
he asked me to take his gear off so I took his gear off.
Then that was it, we went and seen the medic and line medic
that was down the road here about a half mile and they
told us to get to ICP and we went down there, they got
treated and took em away in the ambulance.
And that was pretty much it.
The fire whirl quickly lost energy as it moved from the
higher brush filled slopes into the grassy flats.
It dissipated rapidly, the fire behavior and spread
dropped to nearly nothing.
This camera doesn't do it justice; it's like a tornado
just came through here, which it did.
Just shredded HUGE limbs like that one,
just dropping out of the trees.
I mean, it was so short a time span that it all happened from
the time I walked from my truck 40 feet out and walked back.
That is how much time it took for
everything to here to unfold.
In that precise moment, probably my time span would
say for everything to unfold...2 minutes.
Well, what I was thinking at that point was, my main
thought is, it's not just me no more; I got Chris in the
truck, if I go any further I don't know what
else is going to happen.
You know, it's either, I back out and try and save one
person at least and get out of there or just try and go in
and get the rest of the guys and not knowing what direction
they went, it's kind of hard to make a decision like that.
At one point it was pretty easy to back out, as I was
backing out it was getting pretty hard until I heard
Division call me on the radio then I...it made me feel a
little bit better once I knew they were okay.
A lot of people are wondering if I would do anything
different, I would have to say no.
You say "why", well because I had communications set up and
only had one other person that I was talking to and he had a
radio and I had a radio.
I was his lookout.
We had the escape route, safety zones, the black that
we were pulling with us.
We had our truck with us.
So we had everything set up to meet the objective, continuing
with meeting the objectives safely.
We came with a plan to fire off the Horseshoe
and the Milpitas Road.
It was in support of the objective we got from division
and we were doing it safely, we had black with us,
we had good communications.
We had good weather for us to be burning in that situation.
I look back and I have tried to look at it from a bunch of
different angles and I can't come up with anything that
would make me change tactics.
It just brought home the fact that the closer I have my
module together in that situation the better off we are.
What we witnessed here, what I saw if I was to encounter that
again, plan for worse-case, really make sure your
resources are tactically positioned and ready for
engagement and everybody is aware
of the deteriorating conditions.
We're probably about a 100 feet away from the spot down
here, we never made it to the spot.
It could have been real easy to let them go down and take
care of that by themselves but I had a first year
firefighter, the other two had two seasons so I decided to go
down there with them.
Not sure what the outcome would've been, if I would have
sent them by themselves.
This story was intended as an opportunity for you to learn
from the experiences of others.
We hope that you were able to place yourself in their boots
and think "What would I have done?"
Using the talking points in your student workbook, discuss
your perceptions of the Indians Fire.