Yarnell Hill Wildfire on June 29, 2013, the night before 19 wildland firefighters were killed on it. Photo via Joy Collura via one of her sources.
I have become a student of wildfire.
And of wildland fire-fighting.
Admittedly, from the vantage point of my computer.
While, also, from the vantage point of living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after having lived in the Coconino National Forest near Flagstaff, Arizona, during the 1980’s.
Houston, We have a Problem
Our wildland fire-fighters are getting killed and burned and maimed in this enterprise, in what is called the “Wildland Urban Interface.” Three died this summer in Washington State on the Twisp River Fire. And four more almost died on that wildfire. And five almost died, also, on the Valley Fire, north of San Francisco, California.
And I intend to write more about this here in 2016.
I started observing wildfires and how communities used the Internet to deal with them in the 1990s and early 2000s.
But what really brought me more deeply into this whole realm was the 2013 Yarnell Hill Wildfire and the deaths of the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots. i graduated, in the 1970s, from Prescott College, the home of a wildland fire-fighting crew (many of whom were friends of mine) that became the Prescott Hotshots, a crew involved in the founding of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. When I was a student at Prescott College, I lived in the shadow of Granite Mountain, and rode my Appaloosa mare all over that mountain.
I have been involved (to the tune of about 20 hours per week of my unpaid time) in a “Citizens’ Investigation”, on InvestigativeMedia, of what happened on that fire, since I joined it two years ago, in December. Believe me, spending that holiday season, two years ago, virtually examining, inch by inch, via the photographs that had just been released, the Deployment Site where those 19 young men died, was a gut-wrenching experience.
America Burning:
The Yarnell Hill Tragedy and the Nation's Wildfire Crisis
“On June 30, 2013, 19 firefighters from the Granite Mountain Hotshots were killed battling a wildfire near Yarnell, Arizona. Huge questions remain about the last moments of their lives. Why did they move out of a safe area in their final minutes of life? Why did the fire move so quickly? Could their deaths have been prevented?”
Given how this wildfire was managed (or mis-managed), it is a miracle that only 19 people died during it.
I know more about this wildfire than all but a handful of people. The official investigation of what happened on this wildfire was a complete and total whitewash.
And PS, Sonny and Joy, featured in this video, are now cyber-friends of mine. And Brendan, imho, is going through a serious experience of PTSD. And John Dougherty, the guy with the grey beard, also seen in this video, is the host of InvestigativeMedia, the site I linked above, where we have been gathered in our campfire circle, thanks to him, citizen-investigating this fire.
I believe it is absolutely essential that we citizens of the USA, and our respective states, completely re-think how we are distributing the costs and benefits of how we deal with wildland fires, especially as they impact the Wildland Urban Interface. Even more so, given that global warming is escalating the scope and intensity of these fires.
It is, in my humble opinion, time to call for an independent investigation of what happened on the Yarnell Hill Wildfire, while, also, holding people who live in/build in the Wildland Urban Interface accountable for their own protection of their own properties, which they currently assume Wildland Firefighters will risk their lives protecting.
My biggest problem with writing about this complex topic is that I don’t even know where to begin. So I’m just beginning here.
If you want to ask me questions, you are most welcome to do that. I want to share what I know, what I don’t know, what I think, and what I am trying to understand better.
We need to stop killing our wildand fire-fighters in the Wildland Urban Interface.
Stay tuned.
Namaste.
