Wildfire overruns crew

[Michael Hagen]

Fire behavior this year is beyond what most firefighters or overhead 
have ever experienced. Blue card crews are picked up when regular staff 
is overloaded and may have experienced less fire time than they should 
by this point in the season. On the other hand, many contract crews are 
made up of very experienced firefighters who simply chose not to be in 
the circus.  I'd say these guys and the pilot are damn lucky either way.


In article <6dafee1b.0207260845.99b2554 at posting.google.com>, 
dwheeler at ipns.com says...
> From The Oregonian, July 25, 2002, p A1
> 
> Wildfire overruns crew
> 11 firefighters hurt in state's biggest blaze
> 
> By JEFF BARNARD, The Associated Press
> 	BEND (AP) - Flames overran a 20-person crew battling Oregon's biggest
> wildfire, forcing them to deploy their emergency shelters. Eleven
> firefighters were treated for minor burns and smoke inhalation and
> released from a hospital.
> 	They returned to fire camp at 3 a.m. today, said David Widmark,
> spokesman for the Northwest Interagency Fire Coordination Center.
> 	The firefighters were members of a contract crew known as Ferguson 53
> from somewhere in the Northwest, hired By The U.S. Forest Service to
> fight the Tool Box and Winter fires, which have burned together to
> cover more than 108,000 acres of sagebrush and timber in south-central
> Oregon since they were ignited by lightning nearly two weeks ago, the
> Forest Service said.
> 	The crew was fighting spot fires on the northern tip of the Winter
> fire in Fremont National Forest timber near Picture Rock Pass, not far
> from Oregon 31, said Mark Rounsaville, deputy area commander for the
> Forest Service.
> 	Ten minutes after the firefighters took shelter, a contract
> helicopter pilot making water drops began losing power and made an
> emergency landing in front of the fire line, Rounsaville said. The
> pilow walked away uninjured, but the helicopter remained on the
> ground, a fire line and fire retardant protecting it from the advance
> of the fire.
> 	Rounsaville said there appeared to be no obvious breakdown in
> procedures or communications that would account for the need of the
> firefighters to resort to what is generally regarded as a last-ditch
> survival tactic.
> 	"It is serious," he said.
> 	An interagency investigation team has arrived and is gathering
> information, said fire spokesman Louis Haynes.
> 	At St. Charles Medical Center, crew members declined to be
> interviewed, but Haynes said they were all released to fire camp.
> 	The firefighters will not work today and will undergo special crisis
> debriefing, Rounsaville said.
> 	Rounsaville said a division supervisor hd just checked the crew about
> 4 p.m., when the main fire made a run at the line. The firefighters
> shook out the silvery foil shelters each carries in a pack on his belt
> and crawled inside, laying face flat on the  dirt of the fire line.
> 	"The fire spotted across the line, then ran back at them from the
> opposite side," he said. "They moved their shelters a couple of times,
> maybe as many as three times. They weren't in the shelters a very long
> time. A division supervisor let them out and brought them to camp."
> 	The Tool Box fire remained 40 percent contained late Wednesday.
> Meanwhile, a new fire erupted overnight and grew to 1,600 acrs about
> 17 miles southeast of Chiloquin.