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The roots of change in fighting wildfire today rest with 14 granite crosses planted along a mountainside near Glenwood Springs.
There, on a lower shoulder of Storm King Mountain, 14 firefighters lost their lives when a lightning fire blew up shortly after 4 p.m. July 6, 1994.
Smokejumpers, hotshots and helicopter crew firefighters - the elites - perished that afternoon.
But as fire kills, it also cleans and prepares the ground for fresh growth. Perhaps more so than any wildfire in history, the South Canyon Fire has inspired efforts to improve firefighting. In its wake came renewed emphasis on safety, rules, equipment, techniques. And the most important of all, new focus on developing leaders to make better and safer decisions on the fireline.
**********************************************
You are played out when you first encounter the crosses. Gasping for air, lungs and legs on fire, ready to stop right here, where running up a fireline steepens to a final scramble on all fours, now straight up.
You pass 12 of the 14 knee-high markers at just about ground level, feeling that you can't go on. Yet of course you do. People just like you were killed right here, under a lot more desperate conditions than this warm, clear spring day.
If you made the climb from your starting point 1,800 feet down the line in under 8 minutes, congratulations. You might have lived: Had you reacted instantly to the blowup with 200-foot-long flames, pushed by sudden winds that gusted to 45 mph, that you could not at first see. Had you dropped all your gear, except for your fire shelter, right away and ran from the beginning. Oh, and in the case of some of the deceased, had you not stuck with the slower ones who were caught with you.
Who are you? Well, on Wednesday, May 24, 2005, chances are you are a member of the Redding, Calif., or Redmond, Ore., hotshots. Hotshots are crews of 20 people that fight the toughest wildfires in the toughest spots on those fires. Redding and Redmond are unique in that they are training crews for young leaders from other fire postings who spend a season with them.
Today is primarily for you. But other firefighters have come from all over the West, too, to take part or help guide a training exercise that in large part had its seeds on Storm King Mountain.
The idea, of course, is that you will manage during your career not to leave any more crosses behind. Or have your name etched on one.
***************************************************
"Staff rides" are new to wildland firefighting, though familiar to the military for a century.
Valuable lessons for today can be picked up by sorting through the ashes of a past battle, even one hundreds or a couple of thousand years past. Surely the same can happen with deadly wildfires over the past few decades.
This exercise involves first studying reports, maps, transcripts of radio calls, newspaper clippings, weather data. Basically whatever documents can shed light on what happened.
The studying then is combined with role-playing scenarios in which the participants decide what to do with the information they are given and act out their decisions. As they travel the site, they also are briefed about the actual events.
The combination of study and reliving the episode on the ground can be profound, if done well. One way to ensure the experience sticks is to have a survivor there.
Over dinner later, the participants in turn talk about what they learned and how they plan to apply that to better firefighting.
****************************************************
You begin with the scenarios at the Hotel Colorado after dinner, introductions to the 72 people who will go on the staff ride the next day, and a briefing about the fire in the days leading up to the fateful one.
In this first scenario, you become the beleaguered BLM fire chief for a big swath of western Colorado on July 3, 1994. Lightning has touched off at least 38 fires in your district, and you don't have very many firefighters or resources at your disposal. One of those fires is a little half-acre smoker on a ridgetop seven miles west of Glenwood Springs, visible from I-70.
At least part of the intent of this exercise seems to be to break down the natural urge to second guess the actions that were taken. Monday-morning quarterbacking is relatively easy. It's more difficult to make your own decisions based on the information supplied to you. And humbling.
You will do this throughout the day on the mountain, starting at 7 a.m. and culminating with your last gasp dash for the top, choosing for yourself which way to go.
*************************************************
Reports after the South Canyon Fire led to workshops and meetings and eventually to the formation of the Leadership Committee in 2001, with representatives from a variety of agencies that fight wildfire.
The committee developed a set of principles for effective wildland fire leadership, assembled a training curriculum and a deep library, and made a key connection with the Marines and their leadership program at Quantico, Va.
Lt. Col. Eric Carlson, the now-retired director of operations at the Marine Corps University, played a central role in helping set up fire staff rides and leading them, as he led this exercise on Storm King Mountain.
Marines and wildland firefighters have much in common, he explained.
"Both rapidly deploy young people into violent and uncertain situations, pull them out, and redeploy them into other violent and uncertain situations," he said.
The Marines have lots of experience with staff rides and other leadership exercises to share with firefighters. And there are lessons for the Marine Corps in how small firefighting units are able to work independently and also to coalesce in large temporary groups for big fires.
Between the Leadership Committee's curriculum, emphasis on self-development and this connection with the military, no question, the wildland fire service has made large gains in developing stronger leadership.
Of course, the proof lies in the number of deaths on the fireline in the future.
***************************************************
You are sitting, and sliding a little, on the slope around noon as Tony Petrilli, a smokejumper who survived the blowup in his fire shelter up near the ridgetop, talks about what happened and what they were thinking at the time.
He tells of his and others' nervousness about building fireline downhill on a "mess" of a now-120-acre fire creeping down and around in partially burned brush, with flame heights of just a few inches at most. He tells how the fire activity picked up and they almost left. Why, after a timely water drop from a helicopter on a hot spot, they still thought they could get it lined.
And then the spot fire he happened to see on the other side of the canyon from the main fire. The cold front that came through at just that moment, suddenly kicking the wind way up. How he radioed the alert, looked back and was stunned at how fast that blaze had taken off, now "rolling," as he reported in his next transmission.
From there, it became a race for life. He and others around him went one way and lived. He almost went another way, which would have put his name on a cross. One of the smokejumpers who minutes later died pointed him in the right direction, then went the other way to help the group that came just short of making it out.
You listen closely to Petrilli. He was there. He answers your questions evenly and completely, with no hint of the emotions of being back on the fire site where colleagues and friends died. You only know they are there later, when he weeps at his turn to talk back at the hotel after dinner, and a long silence takes root.
But he also stands tall. He's still fighting fire. Only not the same way. And that's the idea. No more crosses planted on a mountainside. No more.
Managing Editor Don Rogers can be reached at 949-0555, ext. 600, or editor@vaildaily.com
Vail, Colorado
There, on a lower shoulder of Storm King Mountain, 14 firefighters lost their lives when a lightning fire blew up shortly after 4 p.m. July 6, 1994.
Smokejumpers, hotshots and helicopter crew firefighters - the elites - perished that afternoon.
But as fire kills, it also cleans and prepares the ground for fresh growth. Perhaps more so than any wildfire in history, the South Canyon Fire has inspired efforts to improve firefighting. In its wake came renewed emphasis on safety, rules, equipment, techniques. And the most important of all, new focus on developing leaders to make better and safer decisions on the fireline.
**********************************************
You are played out when you first encounter the crosses. Gasping for air, lungs and legs on fire, ready to stop right here, where running up a fireline steepens to a final scramble on all fours, now straight up.
You pass 12 of the 14 knee-high markers at just about ground level, feeling that you can't go on. Yet of course you do. People just like you were killed right here, under a lot more desperate conditions than this warm, clear spring day.
If you made the climb from your starting point 1,800 feet down the line in under 8 minutes, congratulations. You might have lived: Had you reacted instantly to the blowup with 200-foot-long flames, pushed by sudden winds that gusted to 45 mph, that you could not at first see. Had you dropped all your gear, except for your fire shelter, right away and ran from the beginning. Oh, and in the case of some of the deceased, had you not stuck with the slower ones who were caught with you.
Who are you? Well, on Wednesday, May 24, 2005, chances are you are a member of the Redding, Calif., or Redmond, Ore., hotshots. Hotshots are crews of 20 people that fight the toughest wildfires in the toughest spots on those fires. Redding and Redmond are unique in that they are training crews for young leaders from other fire postings who spend a season with them.
Today is primarily for you. But other firefighters have come from all over the West, too, to take part or help guide a training exercise that in large part had its seeds on Storm King Mountain.
The idea, of course, is that you will manage during your career not to leave any more crosses behind. Or have your name etched on one.
***************************************************
"Staff rides" are new to wildland firefighting, though familiar to the military for a century.
Valuable lessons for today can be picked up by sorting through the ashes of a past battle, even one hundreds or a couple of thousand years past. Surely the same can happen with deadly wildfires over the past few decades.
This exercise involves first studying reports, maps, transcripts of radio calls, newspaper clippings, weather data. Basically whatever documents can shed light on what happened.
The studying then is combined with role-playing scenarios in which the participants decide what to do with the information they are given and act out their decisions. As they travel the site, they also are briefed about the actual events.
The combination of study and reliving the episode on the ground can be profound, if done well. One way to ensure the experience sticks is to have a survivor there.
Over dinner later, the participants in turn talk about what they learned and how they plan to apply that to better firefighting.
****************************************************
You begin with the scenarios at the Hotel Colorado after dinner, introductions to the 72 people who will go on the staff ride the next day, and a briefing about the fire in the days leading up to the fateful one.
In this first scenario, you become the beleaguered BLM fire chief for a big swath of western Colorado on July 3, 1994. Lightning has touched off at least 38 fires in your district, and you don't have very many firefighters or resources at your disposal. One of those fires is a little half-acre smoker on a ridgetop seven miles west of Glenwood Springs, visible from I-70.
At least part of the intent of this exercise seems to be to break down the natural urge to second guess the actions that were taken. Monday-morning quarterbacking is relatively easy. It's more difficult to make your own decisions based on the information supplied to you. And humbling.
You will do this throughout the day on the mountain, starting at 7 a.m. and culminating with your last gasp dash for the top, choosing for yourself which way to go.
*************************************************
Reports after the South Canyon Fire led to workshops and meetings and eventually to the formation of the Leadership Committee in 2001, with representatives from a variety of agencies that fight wildfire.
The committee developed a set of principles for effective wildland fire leadership, assembled a training curriculum and a deep library, and made a key connection with the Marines and their leadership program at Quantico, Va.
Lt. Col. Eric Carlson, the now-retired director of operations at the Marine Corps University, played a central role in helping set up fire staff rides and leading them, as he led this exercise on Storm King Mountain.
Marines and wildland firefighters have much in common, he explained.
"Both rapidly deploy young people into violent and uncertain situations, pull them out, and redeploy them into other violent and uncertain situations," he said.
The Marines have lots of experience with staff rides and other leadership exercises to share with firefighters. And there are lessons for the Marine Corps in how small firefighting units are able to work independently and also to coalesce in large temporary groups for big fires.
Between the Leadership Committee's curriculum, emphasis on self-development and this connection with the military, no question, the wildland fire service has made large gains in developing stronger leadership.
Of course, the proof lies in the number of deaths on the fireline in the future.
***************************************************
You are sitting, and sliding a little, on the slope around noon as Tony Petrilli, a smokejumper who survived the blowup in his fire shelter up near the ridgetop, talks about what happened and what they were thinking at the time.
He tells of his and others' nervousness about building fireline downhill on a "mess" of a now-120-acre fire creeping down and around in partially burned brush, with flame heights of just a few inches at most. He tells how the fire activity picked up and they almost left. Why, after a timely water drop from a helicopter on a hot spot, they still thought they could get it lined.
And then the spot fire he happened to see on the other side of the canyon from the main fire. The cold front that came through at just that moment, suddenly kicking the wind way up. How he radioed the alert, looked back and was stunned at how fast that blaze had taken off, now "rolling," as he reported in his next transmission.
From there, it became a race for life. He and others around him went one way and lived. He almost went another way, which would have put his name on a cross. One of the smokejumpers who minutes later died pointed him in the right direction, then went the other way to help the group that came just short of making it out.
You listen closely to Petrilli. He was there. He answers your questions evenly and completely, with no hint of the emotions of being back on the fire site where colleagues and friends died. You only know they are there later, when he weeps at his turn to talk back at the hotel after dinner, and a long silence takes root.
But he also stands tall. He's still fighting fire. Only not the same way. And that's the idea. No more crosses planted on a mountainside. No more.
Managing Editor Don Rogers can be reached at 949-0555, ext. 600, or editor@vaildaily.com
Vail, Colorado
