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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.