Nineteen firefighters burned to death in an Arizona forest fire yesterday, a tragedy that reminds one of Mann Gulch and Storm King, and the deadliest since 29 died in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park fire in 1933. We don’t know all the details yet, and won’t for weeks or months, but we do know that high winds, evidently unexpected, drove the flames that killed the fire crew. In the final analysis, I think we’ll find that human error caused the disaster. In the meantime, it’s already clear that some changes are necessary.
According to National Public Radio, the fire crew was attempting to keep homes in an evacuated area from burning. I strongly suspect that some will blame the homeowners for the deaths, arguing that if building homes in forests, and in the edges on the forests, were prohibited, there would be no reason to risk lives trying to same homes and personal property.
But our society, acting through our governments, condones, indeed even encourages, building in areas subject to forest fires. Consequently, society, and government, assume responsibility for protecting these homeowners and their possessions. That’s especially true when homeowners in the path of an approaching wildfire are told to evacuate and discouraged from staying to try to save their homes from the flames.
How these and other factors produced this tragedy will become clear only after months of investigations, and probably additional months to get the report and supporting data fully in the public record. But several things are clear now: wildland firefighters need much better emergency fire shelters, better technology and procedures for getting out of Dodge when the flames come roaring at the fire line, and better ways to passively protect homes so that the presence of firefighters is not needed when the fire arrives.