![]() The Yarnell Hill Fire was triggered by a lightning strike on a brush-covered mountaintop on the afternoon of June 28, 2013. "A GPS unit would have transmitted to who?" he asked. He also dismissed the use of GPS systems, saying the devices would be overlooked during fast moving fires such as Yarnell. ![]() Forest Service safety official who has investigated wildfire fatalities, cited the organizational mistakes as crucial errors and criticized the new communications guidelines as mere clarifications of standard practices. "There was no plan to move people out of the way," he said during a hearing.ĭick Mangan, a retired U.S. Marshall Krotenberg, the safety agency's lead investigator, told the Industrial Commission of Arizona in December that there should have been officers to ensure firefighters' safety, including a planning section chief and a division supervisor. Forestry officials also distributed new instructions on how ground crews should coordinate with new, large flame retardant-dropping aircraft, such as the one that was circling but unused when the Granite Mountain Hotshots were trapped. The investigation by the state forester called for testing new devices that track crews using global positioning satellites and a communications protocol requiring firefighters to tell managers when weather conditions change. The state has made minor adjustments to its firefighting guidelines. One member of the crew was alone as a lookout, and survived, but was so far away he doesn't know why his fellow firefighters made the decision that led to their deaths. The fact that all the firefighters with the crew died makes it impossible to understand their decision-making. The lack of clarity about mistakes - and what lessons might be learned - left firefighters with little to go on as they examined training and policies in the past year. ![]() Arizona Forestry Division fined for Hotshots' deaths 01:51
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