Librarian
Introduction
Christopher Mullen / Post Independent | From Artists memorialized firefighters following Storm King tragedy
The South Canyon Fire burned from July 2nd-11th, 1994, on and around Storm King Mountain in Western Colorado. The fire was started by a lighting strike and mostly burned down the slope of the mountain and through the loose surface litter for the first few days. On July 6th, strong winds in the West Drainage area of the mountainside caused sections of the fire to reverse directions and begin burning the canopy of the trees. Fourteen firefighters died trying to avoid these rapid upslope fires. The steep, complex terrain was a critical factor in causing these deaths along with the winds and the increase in fire intensity when it moved to the live vegetation in the forest canopy. The fire was declared contained on July 11th. After the initial investigation of the fire, an Interagency Management Review Team was assembled from members and advisors around the US to take those findings and construct an action plan to avoid a similar loss-of-life event. This action plan emphasized a renewed focus on safety as an institutional value in wildland firefighting as well as modifications in training, procedures, and equipment-use standards.
Resources
Fire on the Mountain by Call Number: SD421.32.C6 M235 1999ISBN: 9780061829611Publication Date: 2009-12-08In 1994, a wildfire on Colorado's Storm King Mountain was wrongly identified at the outset as occurring in South Canyon. This unintentional, seemingly minor human error was merely the first in a string of mistakes that would be compounded into one of the greatest tragedies in the annals of firefighting. Before it was done, fourteen courageous firefighters--men and women, hotshots, smokejumpers, and helicopter crew--would lose their lives battling the deadly, so-called South Canyon blaze. John N. Maclean's award-winning national bestseller Fire on the Mountain is a stunning reconstruction of the killer conflagration and its aftermath.
Articles marked IN-PERSON are available at the IFSI Library's physical location, and clicking on the link will take you to the catalog record. Those marked ONLINE can be directly accessed by clicking on the link.
- ONLINE - Hotshots: The Origins of the Interagency Hotshot CrewThis article, beginning on pg. 25, discusses the history of hotshot crews, including major fires, such as the South Canyon fire, that changed how these crews operated.
- ONLINE - A Wildfire Safety Officer's Perspective & Lessons Learned From the South Canyon Fire: Fire Safety, A Community EffortFrom the journal then called Fire Management Notes comes two 1995 articles. One is an analysis of how validated safety guidelines fail to stop firefighter injuries and fatalities. The other describes how the investigation report and interagency action plan produced after the South Canyon fire emphasized the communal nature of fire safety efforts.
- Wildland Fires Lessons Learned Center - South Canyon Fire Entrapment Fatalities 1994The Lessons Learned Center brings together historical and contemporary sources that can help people better understand what happened at a firefighting fatality incident, and what changed as a result.
- National Wildfire Coordinating Group - Staff Ride to the South Canyon FireAs part of their Wildland Fire Leadership Development Program, the NWCG provides resources for 'Staff Rides,' or explorations of the sites of historic wildfires. These include useful background reading, and summaries meant to be used as talking points as the team members move throughout the site.
- National Wildfire Coordinating Group - South Canyon Fire, Colorado, 1994 (A Four-Part Series)This link leads to the index for the "Six Minutes of Safety" series. Scrolling down about halfway, you'll see the four articles on the South Canyon Fire. These articles focus on using the fire as a learning opportunity for contemporary firefighters.
The above video is the first of two parts produced by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group and the Wildland Fire Safety Training Annual Refresher.