Thursday, December 5, 2013

Arizona Yarnell Hill Fire Report: Nineteen Elite Hotshot Firefighters Died Needlessly #Prescott19 #AzFire

The Arizona Division of Forestry has been fined $559,000 for workplace violations during the Yarnell Hill fire that left 19 elite firefighters dead

Nineteen elite Hotshot firefighters died needlessly in June, Arizona safety officials said Wednesday in a damning report that accused state forestry officials of valuing land over firefighters' safety.

The report, by the state Industrial Commission, is a blunt repudiation of the state Forestry Division's review in September, which assigned no blame but said the firefighters and their supervisor failed to "communicate effectively" as they were battling the catastrophic Yarnell Hill fire south of Prescott.

The commission voted unanimously to penalize the Forestry Division to the tune of $559,000, almost all of which would go directly to the families of the fallen firefighters.

Even though forestry commanders knew the crew's efforts were ineffective, the firefighters "were not promptly removed from exposure to smoke inhalation, burns, and death," it said.

The Industrial Commission said communications problems did play a role, but it said those problems arose because key staff members failed to show up for a morning planning meeting and because the Hotshot crew wasn't provided with adequate maps or a second escape route.


"There are lessons that can be learned from this horrible tragedy and we owe it to the firefighters who died, and to those that risked their lives fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire, to do so," Bill Warren, director of the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health, said in a written statement.

Nineteen firefighters - all members of an elite response team - were killed battling a fast-moving wildfire in Arizona, marking the deadliest single incident for firefighters since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

The result was critical confusion as commanders and support staff struggled to figure out where the firefighters were and how bad their situation was, the report said.

In fact, the Industrial Commission charged, the Forestry Division was squarely to blame, saying it "unnecessarily and unreasonably" put the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew members in a pointlessly hazardous situation because it "prioritized protection of non-defensible structures and pastureland over firefighter safety."

"The Industrial Commission said that was a willful workplace safety violation by the Forestry Division in its capacity as the firefighters' employer. "

Yarnell Hill Fire Documentation

News Releases:

Serious Accident Investigation Report: 

      (Report documents are currently available on multiple sites)

 Event Summary:

Dispatch Logs:

Spot Weather Forecasts:

ICS Forms 209:

Resource Orders: 

Incident Management Team:

Investigation Team:

Incident Action Plans:

Incident Action Plan Maps:

Satellite Image:


---------------------------------------------

No comments:

Post a Comment

CAL FIRE NEWS LOVES COMMENTS...
- Due to rampant abuse, we are no longer posting anonymous comments. Please use your real OpenID, Google, Yahoo, AIM, Twitter, Flickr name.


Twitter Buttons

****REMINDER**** Every fire has the ability to be catastrophic. The wildland fire management environment has profoundly changed. Growing numbers of communities, across the nation, are experiencing longer fire seasons; more frequent, bigger, and more severe, fires are a real threat. Be careful with all campfires and equipment.

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer." --Abraham Lincoln

View blog top tags
---------------------
CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO TOP OF CALIFORNIA FIRE NEWS HOME PAGE

Subscribe via email to California Fire News - Keep track of Cal Fire News

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner