Battlement Creek Fire, Colorado – July 17, 1976

It’s 1976 and western Colorado is experiencing an unusually severe fire season caused partly by unusual fuel conditions and heavy lightning activity during dry weather. A severe frost in June kills a high percentage of the leaves on Gambel oak which remain on the branches and is considered one of Colorado’s most flammable fuels. 10 hour fuels are at3-5%. A large scale high pressure weather pattern sits over western Colorado allowing for local weather to be influenced by terrain and diurnal winds averaging 10-15 mph in the afternoon with higher gusts. The weather is fair and hot with the temperatures at Grand Junction and Rifle reaching into the mid and upper 90’s. A fire is reported 40 miles northeast of Grand Junction, in the Battlement Creek drainage. The fire is burning over an elevation range of 6200-8400 ft on a steep west-facing slope.

Friday July 16, 0630, two hotshot crews from the Coconino NF Arizona arrive at the Battlement Creek fire. This is the seventeenth fire of the first season for the newly formed Mormon Lake Hotshot Crew. The strategy is to prevent western and southern spread. The crews begin a major burnout of the catline (dozer line) from the rocky bluffs (Point A) at about 1615, downhill along the catline toward the Battlement Creek road at the bottom (Point C) ending about 2030. The fire makes an uphill run in oak brush burning out a large portion of the drainage (from the road east to the ridge top) in about 20 minutes. Two “impressive” fire whirls are observed between 1600-1700. The night shift continues the burn out (Point C-D and beyond along the road) but is spotty with considerable unburned fuel remaining. Other night shift crews construct line along the ridge top (Point E to G). Based on Friday’s fire behavior, the E-G line is a crucial spot on the fire. Saturday July 17th, 0700, at morning briefing the Mormon Lake crew is assigned to burn out this section of line.

Saturday morning, July 17th - Due to a delay with the helicopter, the Mormon Lake crew does not get to the base of the rock bluff (Point E) until 1100. They are instructed to improve and burn out the line from the rocky bluff to the helispot (Point E-G). The burnout squad consisted of the crew boss, squad boss and 2 crewmembers. The rest of the crew is improving the handline down the ridge top.

At this same time another crew is burning out in the bottom of the draw (Point C-D). The draw burns readily, uphill toward the ridge and the Mormon Lake crew. Neither crew knew of the specific location or assignment of the other.

1400 - 1/3 the way from the rock bluff to the upper helispot, there is a noticeable increase in smoke from the draw below (where the other crew had been burning). The crew boss is instructed to speed up the line improvement squad on toward the safety zone (Point G) and to narrow down and speed up his burnout on down the ridgeline to join the remainder of the crew in the safety zone when his burnout was done. Upslope winds have increased to 25-35 mph.

1425-1440 – The line improvement squad just makes it into the safety zone when the flame front hits the ridge. 200 yards back, the burnout squad radios that they are “trapped”. Their escape is blocked by heavy smoke and flames.

1440 – 1445 – The squad removes their canvas vests to cover their head and face, moistened the vests and their clothes with water from their canteens, and lays face down in the mineral soil of the fireline.

1448 – All four firefighters are very badly burned.
Three will lose their lives

Discussion Points

The crew all wore aluminum hardhats, canvas vests, Nomex shirts and non-fire-resistant work pants. Fire shelters were not used. Fire shelters may have prevented serious burns and death at this incident. Policy on issuing and carrying shelters had not been established yet. This incident became the catalyst for the mandatory use of fire shelters and fire resistant clothing.

Action Item: Take this opportunity to inspect, repair or replace your PPE and fire shelter if needed to ensure that it protects you as well as possible

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Leadership is Action - Digging a Little Deeper

Be sure to learn more about the Battlement Creek fire via the Wildland Fire Leadership Development Program Staff Ride Library.

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Storm King: South Canyon 20th Anniversary

The South Canyon Fire forever changed how we approach wildfire. July 6, 1994, is a date that bonded many in a common loss, forever changed 14 families and shook communities with the loss of their finest. Storm King Mountain, just west of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, claimed 14 firefighters some 20 years ago. Twenty years, a blink in time to so many who lost so much that day.

Food for Thought

"Perhaps the greatest leaders are the ones that are never remembered as great leaders, but great teachers and role models." ~ Don Mercer and Carlos Fontana, "Follow to Lead"

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A Bias for Bold Action

A Bias for Bold Action

by Bob Schoultz

I was recently invited to provide a Navy SEAL’s perspective to a conference on risk management. As I was preparing my remarks, I realized that throughout my career in the Navy, “risk management” had been inherent in my duties as an officer and leader of audacious men in high risk operations, but I had never given the concept of risk management much thought. I felt a little like the fellow who was amazed to learn that he’d been speaking prose all his life and didn’t even know it!

In thinking about it, I realized how important risk management can be to proper planning and success, but also how, if given too much emphasis, it can inhibit bold action and throw sand into the gears of progress.

Risk management is certainly an important aspect of good planning and decision making – an organization should go into any endeavor with its eyes open, understanding what could go wrong and how to manage potential impacts. Careful consideration of risk can help determine whether a plan has a reasonable chance of success, and whether potential benefits justify likely or even unlikely costs. All of that is indisputable.

But an over-emphasis on risk management can torpedo one of the most important factors in any plan’s success: Bold, confident commitment to a plan. Too much attention to risk management can focus an organization on all that can go wrong, rather than on what should go well and what bold action is required to ensure that it does.

A focus on risk can infect a team’s confidence, and over-caution can lead to inaction, or taking half steps, or playing not-to-lose. We’ve heard the catchphrase to: “Always hedge your bets,” and cautious admonitions to be prudent, play it safe, don’t expose yourself, leave yourself a way out, never over-commit. This can be practical advice – especially to ensure you get at least “half a loaf.” But, while the careful approach may sometimes be wise to ensure survival, it won’t promote bold, audacious action. And it won’t inspire subordinates to truly commit to a plan.

In their seminal book, In Search of Excellence, Peters and Waterman repeatedly found that great corporations had what they called “a bias for action.” They noted that “The most important and visible outcropping of the action bias in excellent companies is their willingness to try things out, to experiment…..Most big institutions… prefer analysis and debate to trying something out, and they are paralyzed by fear of failure, however small.” This was true 30 years ago, and it remains true today.

When I was serving at the Naval Academy, I presented an out-of-the-box proposal to then- Superintendent Vice Admiral Rod Rempt, to create an opportunity for midshipmen to participate in National Outdoor Leadership School courses during the summer. He responded that he didn’t think it was a good idea, that it didn’t fit, we’d never done anything like this before, midshipmen already had more options than they could manage, etc., but then he said (and I’ll never forget) “What the hell – let’s give it a try! How can I help?” Ten years later, over a quarter of midshipmen choose to challenge themselves for 24 days in the wilderness with NOLS every summer, and I give Rod Rempt a lot of the credit for his willingness to take a chance and support a subordinate leader’s initiative.

The bold leader inspires subordinates to believe in themselves, their team, their strategy, and their ability to get results. Subordinates know a risky plan when they see it, and it’s important that they trust that their leaders have competently weighed the risks involved, and share in that risk. But it is more important that they know their leaders are confident and committed to the success of the plan, and are ready to commit boldly to its execution – in spite of the risks. History is full of examples of committed and confident teams succeeding where success was deemed unlikely or impossible; there are also innumerable examples of timid leaders and teams snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Napoleon pointed out that in war, morale is to material as three is to one.

But there can be a fine line between being bold and audacious, and being blind and fool-hardy. The motto of the Navy Seabees is “Can Do,” but they also say “Too much ‘Can-Do’ can do you in.” John Wayne once said, “Life is tough. It’s even tougher when you’re stupid.” But I’m arguing against risk managers injecting too much “Can’t Do” into vision and planning.

Great leaders have a bias for bold action, but prudently manage risk. Excellent managers on the other hand, are expected to be the voice of prudence and caution, to be their organization’s risk managers, while still leaving room for experimentation and well-calculated audacity. In my own career, I have played the role of the cautious manager, raising red flags when (what I perceived to be) irresponsible and dangerous ideas were being proposed and considered. I have also been the bold, aggressive leader who my team routinely had to rein in, to make sure we didn’t get out in front of our own headlights. When the balance is right between bold but prudent leaders, and cautious but confident managers, there are few limits to what an organization can accomplish.

I was recently asked to speak on how great leaders and teams respond to chaos and uncertainty. In my remarks, I noted that bold leaders know that while chaos and uncertainty are dangerous and warrant caution, they also present great opportunities. The bold, aggressive leader will carefully watch chaos, staying alert, agile, ready to neutralize threats, but also ready to strike when opportunities present themselves. While the bold leader is wary of the danger inherent in chaos, s/he keeps the front site focused on opportunity.

When the going gets tough, the bold leader stays focused on opportunity. Chesty Puller, when told that the Chinese had him and his Marines surrounded in Korea, is reputed to have responded: “That simplifies the problem. The bastards can’t get away from us now!” He didn’t (as far as I know) then ask his staff for a risk management plan. But a good chief of staff would have prepared one for him anyway!

“The credit belongs to the man who strives valiantly; who spends himself in a worthy cause… who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid who neither know victory nor defeat.” (Teddy Roosevelt, adjusted slightly…)

Manage risk, but always with a bias for bold action.

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The WFLDP would like to thank Bob Schoultz, retired Navy Seal commander and certified  L-380 instructor for NOLS, for allowing us to reprint his blog post. Check out other articles on Bob's blog, "Bob Schoultz's Corner."

Food for Thought

"Followers who tell the truth, and leaders who listen to it, are an unbeatable combination." ~ Warren Bennis

Building the Resilient Team - An Idaho Example

(Photo credit: Steve Hayward, Idaho Bureau of Homeland Security)

The Bureau of Land Management's Idaho Falls District Fire Management crews and overhead took part in what has become an annual large-scale training exercise in conjunction with the Upper Snake Interagency Wildfire Group (USIWG).

(Photo credit: Steve Hayward, Idaho Bureau of Homeland Security)

The exercise took place on Saturday, June 28, in Menan, Idaho. Approximately 12 federal, state and local fire and law enforcement agencies and over 80 personnel took part in the exercise.

(Photo credit: Steve Hayward, Idaho Bureau of Homeland Security)

Crews rotated through four stations, including a sand table exercise focused on setting up a unified command for an escalating wildland-urban interface incident that included a cost share discussion. Other stations focused on setting up tactical interoperability radio kits to facilitate radio communications, structure triage and protection, and an emergency medical incident.

(Photo credit: Steve Hayward, Idaho Bureau of Homeland Security)

Contact: Kevin Conran at 208-524-7602

Food for Thought

"Leadership is a choice. It is not a rank." ~ Simon Sinek

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"Lone Survivor" Comes to Leadership in Cinema

To culminate our 2014 National Fireline Reading Challenge, we are teaming up with the Leadership in Cinema program to dig a little deeper. We challenge students of fire to watch the movie "Lone Survivor" and compare and contrast the book with the movie.

Leadership is Action - Dig a Little Deeper Facilitation Resources

• Ben Eby, Leadership in Cinema program steward, created a "Lone Survivor" lesson plan to make facilitation easy. Ben included some great video resources within his lesson plan. Be sure to check them out.
• Bob Schoultz, former Navy SEAL and L-380 instructor for NOLS, shares his thoughts on the book versus the movie on his blog.

Food for Thought

"Followers assess their leader's integrity every day. If people believe a leader has integrity, they can accept other weaknesses and help compensate for them." ~ "Leading in the Wildland Fire Service, p. 59

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Day 7: Remembering Those Lost on Storm King Mountain

DAY 7: REMEMBERING THOSE THAT LOST THEIR LIVES ON STORM KING MOUNTAIN - 20 YEARS AGO TODAY

There is no question that the loss of firefighter’s lives deeply affects us all, but when we realize just how many burnovers and deployments and aircraft accidents and felling injuries have happened, we need to ask ourselves “are we learning anything?”

Are we getting better? Has anything really changed? When the wildland fire community suffered the terrible loss of 14 firefighters on the South Canyon Fire, it became the catalyst for change. It changed us and how we manage fire. Listed below are some of the changes…each one honoring the losses on Storm King Mountain 20 years ago today.

• Safety – Fire training was reviewed to include lessons learned and greater emphasis on safety
• Safety – Emergence of hot shot crews as safety leaders at the field level. Right to refuse an assignment.
• Leadership Curriculum - The accident planted the seeds for the leadership curriculum.
• Human Factors – Recognition of the importance of attitudes and human behavior in accidents.
• Lessons Learned Center – The 1998 Tri-Data study recommended that the wildland fire service look into building a lessons learned center. The Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center was created in 2002.
• Fire shelters – The development of a more effective fire shelter started with this incident.
• Fire shelter training – Develop and refresh yearly on fire shelters. Clarify deployment vs safety zones.
• Predictive Services – Recommendations to integrate fire weather meteorology with fire behavior forecasting at the geographic coordination center level evolved into the development of the predictive services units we have today
• Fire Weather Forecasting – Better communication of fire weather forecasts to incidents, improvements to the red flag and spot weather programs.
• Interpretation of NFDRS products for field use: Pocket Cards and other tools for understanding the effect of fire danger and drought on firefighter safety.
• Agency administrators – Greater involvement of agency leaders in emphasis on firefighter safety.
• Fire policy reviews - Review of National fire policy. Media interest in fire policy and fire management.
• Fire decision making – Changes were recommended to decision making process (the EFSA and fire complexity)
• Qualifications standards - The 1995 Federal Wildland Fire Policy and Program Review, signed by both Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior, directed Federal wildland fire agencies to establish fire management qualifications standards to improve firefighter safety and increase professionalism in fire management programs.

Discussion Questions

• What changes would you like to see in the wake of the Yarnell Hill Fire? 
• Based on events like Yarnell Hill and South Canyon, what can you and your crew do differently?

[Visit 6 Minutes for Safety to download the flyer.]

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