In the afternoon on July 28, 1939, a crew from the Paradise Valley Civilian Conservations Corps (CCC) camp arrived at the Rock Creek Fire, a 30-acre sagebrush fire in Humboldt County, on the northern border of Nevada.
Wilbur Timmons, the crew’s Foreman, anticipated few problems. Grassland-sagebrush fires were common in the area, and firefighters considered them the easiest kind of fire to contain.
Upon arriving at the fire, Timmons divided the 23 young men into two squads. He put 21-year-old Earnest Tippin in charge of the second squad. Timmons sent Tippin’s group to approach from the west to the bottom of the fire—what was deemed to be the safer option for the less-experienced Tippin.
When Tippin reached the ridge at the head of the dry drainage, the fire was backing down the ridge to the north. Minutes later, after Tippin gave a short briefing, the wind abruptly shifted from the west to the east and increased to more than 40 miles per hour. Suddenly, the ten men were directly in the path of the oncoming head fire. Tippin ordered an urgent retreat back to the truck.
As they dropped down into the drainage, the fire outflanked them on the ridge tops and heavy smoke hindered their orientation. The group was steadily being driven deeper into the drainage. The fire was closing in from behind and on their flanks.
While jumping into the drainage bottom, George Kennedy, one of the squad members, broke his ankle and called for help as the fire rapidly approached. Tippin and Walter James, another squad member, immediately turned back to help him. Arm in arm, the three continued downhill.
The rest of the squad was staggered ahead of them, each making their way to the truck as fast as he could.
Unfortunately, five squad members—including Tippin—never made it and were overrun by the fire.
Investigators pieced together that, after helping Kennedy, Tippin and James also helped another squad member who was injured in the retreat. The bodies of Tippin and James were found in close proximity to the second injured crewmember. The investigators contended that Tippin could easily have escaped the fire, had he left behind the injured crewmembers and instead looked out only for himself.
On that day, events unfolded in ways completely contrary to what people expected and had predicted. It marked the first time that a sagebrush fire caused the deaths of firefighters.
Earnest Tippin lost the battle with nature that day, all the while never losing sight of his responsibility to look out for his crewmembers, even though his allegiance cost him his life. The Carnegie Foundation awarded a posthumous medal of bravery to Tippin for his actions that day.
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