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The intent of this module is to broaden the scope of
fire shelter training through a case study.
It will be delivered through the story of
shelter deployments on the Little Venus Fire as told
by two Unaweep Fire Use crewmembers, Ryan Jordan
and module leader Lathan Johnson.
It will be told in two parts with one exercise.
Part one will deal with the events leading up to
the deployments.
The facilitator will then lead you in a
decision-making exercise.
Part two will describe the actual deployments and the
lessons learned.
Refer to information provided in your Student
Workbook as well as any appropriate references in
the IRPG to make your decisions.
On July, 18, 2006, 10 individuals assigned to
the Little Venus fire on the Shoshone NF as part of
a fire use module were entrapped and deployed fire shelters.
No significant injuries were sustained, no
personnel were hospitalized, and all
personnel were safely evacuated from the fire.
This incident is a significant event but
differs from past deployments-the involved
personnel were not actively engaged in the
performance of an operational fireline assignment.
They were en route to a camp location to debrief
with a crew they were replacing.
They would not have a fireline assignment until
the next operational period.
Unaweep has an excellent reputation for safety and professionalism.
Partly because of this reputation, they rotate
trainees into the module throughout the season.
Lathan Johnson's crew consisted of four regular
crewmembers, a detailed Assistant Module Leader,
one member detailed from the Boise Smokejumpers,
two from the Krassel Helitack, and two detailed from the Shoshone NF.
All crew members were well qualified, physically fit,
and experienced firefighters.
Issues facing the crew included communication and
logistical problems.
The National Weather Service had also issued a
Red Flag Warning for a passing cold front earlier that morning.
Our assignment was to replace -- there was
already a fire use module already at the heal of the
fire - or up at Venus cabin which was eight
miles into the wilderness area.
And our assignment was to replace them because they
had been on the assignment for 13 days; so on day 14
they were gonna get out of there.
Basically it was going to be briefing.
We got the main picture at the district office and
then it was supposed to be assignment-hike in eight
miles, meet that module and get more of a
briefing, get more assignments assigned to
us, and more details and stay at the fire for two weeks.
And when we got there the mules hadn't even had any
of our equipment loaded on them-this was around 1300.
I mean the day started off late-it was an hour and a
half drive to get out to the trailhead, so things
just started getting bumped back later and later.
So when we were sitting at the trailhead, we started
assisting the packer loading up the mules
because we knew had to kind of get on the trail -
get into the module that evening.
The fire behavior that you could see anything of was
a little bit of smoke at the head of the fire at
the time at that was way up top, high elevation and
there was a hotshot crew and a Type 2 crew up there.
So what we did at that trailhead was introduce
ourselves to the new joining two members from
the district-talked about where we were from, our
experience a little bit, and just a brief what we
were going to be doing.
Communications you could tell were already scratchy
because we couldn't get in touch with the module that
we were supposed to tie in with which was eight miles
up the canyon.
We were able to hear the ICP at the trailhead and
the crew that was on top of the fire at the head.
The other communication concern was trying to get
the packers to have radios.
We knew that they were taking off in front of us.
And we gave him a radio and told him a little bit
how to use it, but he had no interest in turning it on.
He said, "I'll turn it on if I need it.
" The packers were local from the area.
One was a middle-aged gentleman that's been
contracting with that district for quite a
while; and he had a helper who was a younger
boy-about 14 years old-that was from that
area also.
About the 15 to 20 minutes we were sitting there, the
one thing that people brought up was how this
nice walk in the wilderness in the
morning-nice and cool in the good part of the
day-has now turned into 2-, 3-o'clock in the
afternoon-the hottest part of the day.
And that was the only thing really brought up
other than the length of the hike without knowing
what was going on the last day or two in that draw.
So when we left Jack Creek Trailhead our
anticipations were engaging in no fire activity.
It was going to be a casual walk in-eight miles
to Venus cabin.
Pretty relaxed-no Nomex.
We weren't supposed to be seeing fire.
Things were supposed to be a nice walk in the wilderness.
About an hour and a half in, we started getting
some communication with the Black Hills Lookout.
At this point, there was a little bit of radio
traffic-still scratchy, not real clear-that there
was fire on both sides of the draw and they would
recommend us to stage for a little while.
And that was an event where we all stopped, got
together, kind of heard what was going on; and at
that point we didn't feel any discomfort because we
couldn't see anything that they were talking about,
couldn't see the column.
We had the mule train in front of us; so if we
stopped there was no way to get a hold of them
because they didn't have the radio on.
We tried at that point; so we knew that-we felt that
we would go until we saw the fire because we still
had a ways-we were only at mile two at this point,
and we were supposed be to going eight miles.
So we couldn't really make sense of what was going on with that.
And two, the mule train was in front of us; and
there was no way to get a hold of them.
So we thought we'd go and try to contact them as well.
So at that first stop when we heard Black Hills
telling us a little bit about the fire being on
both sides of the draw-we should hold up-one of our
module leaders, the one that was from the district
working with our crew, knew where that module
unit was talking about.
And so he told us that he knew the location where
the fire was on both sides of the draw; he knew an
alternate route that would get us around that area.
He felt comfortable enough to keep walking in there.
And so then we proceeded on the trail up to the
Anderson Creek Junction; and that's where he
explained a little bit-this is the alternate
route; if we need to go that way, we can.
And at this time we still didn't have a visual on the fire.
So we decided to keep moving up the Grey Bull
drainage, and at this time we hadn't tied into the mules.
So we continued another 400 yards past the
Anderson Creek Junction, and came up over a
rise-topography feature-and that's when we
encountered the first visual of the fire coming
out at us.
This is when we knew we weren't going to be
progressing any further.
Everybody changed their mind set that this was a fire situation.
We put our Nomex on, hard hats came out, PPE-became
apparent that we needed it.
At this point, the fire use module advised some
people to start turning around and heading back down the trail.
We hadn't met up with the mule train yet, so we were
actually trying to establish communication
there; again with the radio-none of that was helping.
We tried whistling a little bit.
And what was confusing was we didn't know how they
could be going that much further ahead of us
because the fire was a one-half mile away from us.
So we knew they had to be in between us.
Stood there for about 5-10 minutes.
Knew that we had to get out of there.
Right when were starting to turn around, the
younger boy with five mules came cruising out of
the timber - came by us.
One of the members told him to keep continuing
down the Grey Bull River and get to the Jack Creek Trailhead.
At that time, most of the crew members had been
reversed order - our turnaround point.
People started hiking down.
So at the turn around point, myself and two
other of the module members-one of them was
the leader, the other guy was the local district
guy-and we waited there for another minute to see
if the older packer would be coming out.
We didn't see him.
We started going down because we knew we had no
more time to waste.
And I remember actually looking at my module
leader and saying I don't think he's going to make it.
And that's when we knew we had to start moving.
The Unaweep Module is now at a critical decision point.
What would you do?
We all know the ultimate outcome was good.
However, decisions had to be made and action had to
be taken to ensure that outcome.
Given the story thus far, visualize yourself as a
member of the crew and consider some of the
possible outcomes or "what-ifs" and the actions
you would take for each.
Get into your groups and discuss your assessment of the situation.
Utilizing the maps in your Student Workbooks and the
IRPG, determine a plan or plans of action for your "what-ifs."
Your facilitator will give you 15 minutes and
will then randomly select someone from your group to
communicate a plan of action in the form of
instructions to your crew.
There are no right or wrong answers.