Weeks after a backcountry blaze, the Yarnell Fire, killed 19 Arizona firefighters, the discomfiting question lingers like acrid smoke: What went wrong? How did the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a professional crew schooled in the safety-first mentality, become trapped and engulfed in flames? In a wildfire world where mistakes can mean deaths, experts say the questions demand answers.
Investigators so far have issued only a terse 72-hour report that addressed dynamics rather than causality: As a thunderstorm moved in, fire reversed direction and exploded into a hellish inferno. That is the modus operandi of most killer fires. The Yarnell Hill blaze was unique in the number of victims.
The review process is sobering and meticulous: Team members must interview witnesses and study dispatch logs, aerial photographs, weather reports, fuels, topography, training, leadership, autopsies and every imaginable factor in the June 30 deaths.
Detailed findings are expected in mid-September, but prospects of blame already have churned controversy. In fact, wildfire-fatality reviews nearly always identify mistakes and safety violations by the victims, compounding the pain.
Dick Mangan, a retired U.S. Forest Service investigator from Montana who has participated in about two dozen accident inquiries across the nation, said investigators owe it to the hotshots to determine why they died.
From USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/11/yarnell-fire-investigation/2641497/