thinking of the firefighters who have died this year--I was reminded of the Storm King smoke jumpers

[niyad]

A helicopter drops off an investigation team, which includes search and body recovery personnel, after 1994's South Canyon Fire.



PHOTO BY JIM KAUTZ, US FOREST SERVICE
20 Years Later, Legacy of a Deadly Colorado Wildfire Endures
The South Canyon Fire killed 14 firefighters and changed how wildfires are fought. Then last year in Arizona, tragedy struck again.


PUBLISHED July 3, 2014

Twenty years ago, at 4 p.m. on July 6, a wave of flame swept along a ridge on Colorado's Storm King Mountain, killed 14 firefighters, and became a benchmark for wildland firefighting with repercussions that continue to this day. On Sunday, firefighters from across the nation will gather at the site of what became known as the 1994 South Canyon Fire, about seven miles west of the resort town of Glenwood Springs in central Colorado, to mark the anniversary and take stock of the legacy. For many of the specially trained crews that battle mountain wildfires in the American West, it was a blaze that made it more acceptable for firefighters to speak up or even decline assignments they consider too dangerous—once a rare occurrence that could result in a firing or ostracism in a profession that requires aggressive, type A personalities. No official report articulated that change, but among many firefighters it was an understood lesson of South Canyon.

The South Canyon blaze, which scorched 2,115 acres, accelerated technical advances in battling wildfires, from a new generation of fire shelters—small, protective "mummy" bags carried by firefighters that can be their defense of last resort from flames—to improved communications. "Immediately, we all had radios," said one South Canyon survivor, Eric Hipke. South Canyon also sparked more scrutiny of fire officials' decision-making and strategies in battling deadly fires, and led to changes in the National Weather Service's fire weather forecasting division, which doubled its number of fire weather forecasters and found ways to deliver up-to-the-minute weather information—including crucial details about wind, which can fuel a fire and its direction—to forecasters in the field. (Related: "Overwhelming Cause of California Wildfires: Humans.&quot

After South Canyon, "incident meteorologists became rock stars," said Chris Cuoco, the meteorologist whose accurate prediction of a dangerous weather shift during the South Canyon Fire never reached the firefighters on the mountain.

It's widely accepted within the firefighting community that these and other lessons of the South Canyon Fire have saved lives during the past two decades. Even so, the dangers of fighting wildfires in the hot, dry summer remain real.

. . . .

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140704-south-canyon-wildfire-colorado-wildlands-fire/

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

1. Red Cards

Not for the feeble or faint of heart.

[GoCubsGo]

2. A firefighter from our local Forest Service station died in that fire.

It's hard to believe that was almost 25 years ago. Seems like it was just yesterday.

[niyad]

3. I know what you mean. stunned me that it was that long ago.

[KG]

4. 13 crosses above the cold missouri waters - mann gulch

[niyad]

5. thank you for posting this.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

6. "Young Men and Fire"

The anniversary is coming up. I have the book. I think I started it, but I know I never got around to finishing it.

Young Men and Fire

Young Men and Fire is a non-fiction book written by Norman Maclean. It is an account of Norman Maclean's research of the Mann Gulch fire of 1949 and the 13 men who died there. The fire occurred in Mann Gulch in the Gates of the Mountains Wilderness on August 5. The book won the National Book Critics Circle Award (1992).

Synopsis

Norman Maclean and Laird Robinson, in an attempt to forensically analyze the Mann Gulch Fire, brought together multiple sources, including the official report of the United States Forest Service of the fire, the testimony of the three men who fought the fire and lived, and the research and report of Robert Jansson and Harry T. Gisborne (who would suffer a fatal heart attack at Mann Gulch two months later trying to get to the bottom of the tragedy). Jansson was ranger of the Helena National Forest's Canyon Ferry District, the area that included Mann Gulch, on duty the day of the fire. Maclean and Laird also took Walter Rumsey and Robert Sallee, the only two living survivors of the fire team (as survivor Wag Dodge died in 1955), back to the scene of the fire in 1978, hoping that walking the ground again would help solve some of the missing pieces. Additionally, Laird and Maclean would use the modern Fire Lab and their mathematical analysis (advances in fire methodology not available in 1949), to search for answers to the fire.

With all of these pieces, several trips to Mann Gulch, and ideas bantered back and forth between each other, Bud Moore, Ed Heilman, Rich Rothermel, Frank Albini, and other members of the U.S. Forest Service forest fire investigators, Maclean and Laird came to new conclusions on the fire's events: that the wind went in the opposite direction than was originally thought possible, and once the fire got started, it created its own unique weather system (which few thought possible before this research).

It was always assumed that the wind was traveling south, or upstream, on the Missouri River at that time of day. Instead, they proved that the wind was traveling north, or downriver, and that the top of the ridge (which juts out as the river bends sharply to the northwest and separates Mann Gulch and Meriwether Canyon) split this downriver wind in two. These two separate-smaller winds then re-converged (on the other side of the ridge) in the heart of the gulch (at right-angles). This convergence combined with massive heat, produced by the fire and the hot August afternoon.

Additionally, the vegetation pattern played a part in how the fire developed and took the lives of the men. The south side of the gulch was of the mountains, with taller forested trees, but the north side of the gulch was of the plains, with smaller trees and dense grasses. This combination of contrasting vegetation, heat, air currents, and right-angle winds, would cause the fire to change direction instantly, trapping and killing most of the fire fighters in its path.

Related

Norman Maclean's son, John Norman Maclean, wrote Fire on the Mountain that told a very similar story about the South Canyon Fire on Storm King Mountain on July 6, 1994 in Colorado, which took the lives of 14 firefighters.

Mann Gulch fire

The Mann Gulch fire was a wildfire reported on August 5, 1949 in a gulch located along the upper Missouri River in the Gates of the Mountains Wilderness (then known as the Gates of the Mountains Wild Area), Helena National Forest, in the state of Montana in the United States. A team of 15 smokejumpers parachuted into the area on the afternoon of August 5, 1949 to fight the fire, rendezvousing with a former smokejumper who was employed as a fire guard at the nearby campground. As the team approached the fire to begin fighting it, unexpected high winds caused the fire to suddenly expand, cutting off the men's route and forcing them back uphill. During the next few minutes, a "blow-up" of the fire covered 3,000 acres (1,200 ha) in ten minutes, claiming the lives of 13 firefighters, including 12 of the smokejumpers. Only three of the smokejumpers survived. The fire would continue for five more days before being controlled.