Cooper: It was almost like a switch was flipped.
Hipke: The cold front winds travel up the Colorado River drainage. As the canyon narrows,
the winds are compressed and accelerated and flow up the west drainage.
Petrilli: We could see further down at the bottom of the canyon, uh a spot fire taking
off. The wind had just turned on that fire, ya know, within a matter of seconds. Uh whatever
was down there, ya know, sparked off across the canyon and uh you could definitely see
it. Wind was on it, it was pushing it, it was going to get big. There was no doubt about
it. Ya know, we all said, ya know, hey we're out of here. Um I called Mackey on the radio
as we were making our way back to the lunch spot. It's like hey this thing has spotted
across the canyon and uh ya know, we wanted to double check it's like a ya know, what
canyon? And I came back and said yeah, it spotted across the main canyon. And I turned
around and looked at it one more time and it had progressed, I donít know, probably
50 yards in a matter of, ya know, 10-15 seconds. Um, it definitely the wind was on it. So I
replied back to him yeah it spotted across the main canyon and it's rolling.
Doehring: Heading up towards that ridge that's when we met Sonny Archeleta coming down to
join us. And I could hear the radio traffic, ya know, I could hear Don say ya know we need
to get out of here. And uh, we started going back up. Not too much of a sense of urgency,
but somewhat, but then we turned around and looked and just started seeing this smoke
was boiling up and could hear Don saying we gotta get out of here now now.
Shepard: Kelso called and said there's a spot down below. I immediately said, John
get out of there. Come back up here to the top. OK, affirmative. I called Scholz and
I said get the crew up H1. Get em to the safety zone at H1.
Scholz: He said to uh head to uh H1 the safety zone and we all lined out. We had the other
the BLM folks here with us and we started marching up the ridge. Robertson: Um, I wasn't aware why we were doing that. I knew the wind was blowing
but I didn't know uh, what exactly was happening. I did notice the column that was down in the
west drainage. Just knew that I had to load up and go as ordered.
Hipke: Kept hiking along and and the first jumper I ran into was Jim Thrash and he was
right by Jerry Hagen and they were just finishing up their lunch. That's when Roger Roth walked
up long-arming two five gallon cubies and at the same time we noticed uh our attention
was brought to this column that was down the drainage. And the way the topography rolls
around here, in fact, you can't even see the lunch spot right through here. And we
couldn't see the base of the column, but you could sure see the column rising in here.
And for us, to head back to the lunch spot, it would have been walking directly towards
the column. Ya know, it's just natural to go out the way you came in. We didn't know
what was past that lunch spot really at all. So, we walked we walked directly away from
the danger and the rest of the Prineville followed behind us.
Petrilli: I was at the tail end of our little uh jumper squad um making our way back to
the lunch spot. Ran into Mackey, uh, ya know, he's directing us, ya know, go up the ridge
go up the ridge, there's good black up there. Um, in later discussions with some of the
jumpers in my group was uh ya know, in my mind I was going to be going up the ridge
into the black, but in a couple of the other guys their mind was to go back down the
fireline that we had just built so. Mackey was there to make sure that everybody going
up the ridge uh to the good black, ya know, it was uh, ya know, that was good deal. He didn't have to stay there and and make sure ya know, we knew the right place
to go and uh he didn't have to do that. And who knows, me being at the tail end, I
had my idea, but what happens if some guys start bailing off down the line. What ya know,
I thought about that since then, ya know. Guys are bailing down towards the fireline.
My idea was to head up the ridge. Would I have followed them down the fireline? I could
have. I don't know, I don't know. I'm glad I wasn't faced with that decision.
Longanecker: Mackey had called me on the radio and asked me if I was OK. I think that's
when he started going down to make sure that all of Prineville got out.
Doehring: Boogied up the line and ran into uh the sawyer and the swamper at the tree.
We stopped and said hey did you guys hear we're supposed to get out of here and by
this time things were really boiling up and they hadn't heard it because they were running
saw and swamper was throwing brush. And so we stood there for a few moments and uh at
this point I'm like I'm ready to get out of here and uh myself and Sonny started to
continue up the line and the swamper was with us. Sonny was ahead of me and I just remember
more and more a sense of urgency of getting out of there and I felt like pushing Sonny.
Erickson: Brad Hagh and I sit there and we're talking back and forth and uh talking about
the oak brush. And he says oh yeah, this stuff is really volatile. Ya know, til then I didn't... I just thought it was brush. Green brush that wasn't burning. Hipke: As we started getting further along the line and were able to glimpse over the 12-foot
tall brush and get some glances down into the canyon. we could see that the fire is now
marching its way up towards us and every little glimpse I got, I couldn't believe how much
further the fire advanced. It's just hard to comprehend that it was moving that fast.
It's like moving through gasoline. It was just a wall of smoke and flame and I realized
later that we were looking at the side of the column. It was just a massive column that
to me just looked like a wall coming at us and that's when we really as soon as we saw
that that's when we were moving moving as fast as we could. And the line was freshly
dug, roots everywhere, stobs stuck cut off from the brush, they're just like punji
sticks. Ya know, everybody took their turns, stumbling and falling and holding the rest
of the line up and you just kinda get the accordion thing going on.
We passed the stump and our group stacks up as we climb while crossing the spur ridge.
Roth in front. Thrash second. I was third. Terry Hagan was forth with the rest of the
Prineville Hotshots behind us. And through here that I noticed I took a glimpse back
and noticed that Don Mackey had caught up with the group. We had just locked gazes and
he was breathing really hard and this grimace of concern and it's a look I'll never forget. Driven by the wind and slope, fire now has enough energy to ignite the oak brush and
races through the unburned and underburned canopy toward the main ridge.
Gray: We start moving up the ridge and it's, it's an organized movement. We're all together.
Thereís a sense of urgency, but we're not running for our lives so to speak. And we
get up to there where the rocks are and it's quite obvious to the folks in the front of
the group that we're not going to make it to the safety zone. That the fire is there.
It has beat us there. Robertson: Get up to these rocks. Um Kim gets
a, what I'm assuming is a radio call. I remember stepping up on a rock and all of a sudden
Kim turned around and was facing me and passing me heading down the hill. I turn around and
look down the hill and see everybody, the back of everybody's hardhats, retreating
off the ridge. Both our crew and the IA crew that was with us. At this time I still have
my ear plugs in. I'm not exactly sure what's going on other than uh seeing seeing the looks
on folk's faces. Um, but uh at that point that's when fire starts coming up over the
top of the ridge and I figure out very quickly what's happening.
Gray: There's flames beginning to curl over that ridge. And there's still people
running out of there. Ryerson: I remember running back down the
ridgeline and the heat was so intense that ya know, I have my hand on my side of the
face just to keep the heat off. Scholz: And at that point it it was chaos.
Uh, it was loud, it was hot, uh. Folks were stumbling back down, uh. The group was breaking
up. Gray: We're ordered to pull shelters so we
do as we come down that ridge. Pull shelters we're running with them in our hands.
Scholz: When I look back and I saw I saw Alex and it looked like he was a surfer coming
out of a wave ya know, he was coming down the ridge with this big curl over him.
Hipke: This is the uh draw at the bottom of the final 400 feet before the top and it's
right here where Thrash stepped off to the side and we're just breathing really hard,
almost out of breath. And he only had enough breath to go shelter, like that and uh, when
he said that Roth stepped off to the other side to hear what he said and for me that
was like uh, ya know, two slow cars pulling off on the road. They weren't quite going
as fast as I wanted to go. I didn't know either Thrash and Roth and that probably
saved me cuz if it had been a couple couple of NCSB jumpers I might have stopped. And investigators
told me that the rates of spread they figured out that if I had been uh five seconds slower,
than I might not have made it out. So if I had, ya know, stopped and said hey I don't
think uh I'm not gonna shelter up, I'm gonna keep going uh that. Ya know, I didn't even
have the breath to say that. So I just kept going. Erickson: And then a spot come across underneath ya and that's when I got on the radio and
said hey you guys got a spot below you, you better get the hell out of there. And then
that spot went to the size of a house just immediately, there was enough air on it to
blow it up. Doehring: We got to the top of the ridge,
myself and Sonny, and that's when uh we looked over again and saw what was going on. And
that's when he asked me for my camera, asked if I had a camera and I was said yeah. So
I pulled out my camera and gave it to him and he took a couple of shots. And uh gave
me back the camera. I took a couple of shots with him, his his back of his head, his helmet
in the foreground with flames in the back and then I took that camera and I stuck it
down my shirt cuz I didn't wanna mess around with my PG bag and I said I, I'm getting
out of here. It was sort of a, ya know, fight of flight and I was into the flight. And uh,
I headed out of there. Hipke: I made it this far, I could hear Kevin
Erickson and Brad Hagh yelling at us from the tree up there and I stopped for just a
second to look back and I was looking right into Roger Roth's eyes. He's about 50 feet
behind me uh with everybody coming up behind him. And 50 feet is starting to make a lot
of a lot of time, it's getting steeper and steeper here. Erickson: About that time, Brad Hagh's like hey I think I'm gonna get out of here. I
kept yelling and uh and then I thought OK hey, the entire hillside is just full, it
was fire just fire everywhere. And I could see the crew right below me, but anyway I
take up walking as hard as I can up through there and just take off running cuz you could
hear it, ya know, it was taking off like a jet. Hipke: I just immediately started blasting up the hill. I don't remember seeing anybody
after that. I was just... my world was just closing in to just was exactly around me.
It gets so steep, you're almost reaching out and using your hands to get up the slope.
Robertson: People were spread everywhere. They were spread all along this ridge. Different
colored hard hats all over the place. I never had the thought of getting my shelter out.
It took me long enough just to drop my saw. Ya know, my chainsaw had a name, it was it
was my tool, and I cared for it a lot and I never thought about putting it down, but
eventually um I saw a stack of Dolmars and a stack of chainsaws and I dropped mine there.
Shepard: I run across our our personal gear bags and shoveled them over into this depression
thinking OK, there in a little bit of a hole they'll be OK. Tyler and Browning, the
helitack guys, came over and helped me do that. Hipke: Shepard leaves H2 and joins a fleeing main ridge group as they were forced into
the east drainage by the heat and embers from the advancing flame front.
Shepard: I look back and here is Tyler and Browning back up toward H2 right above the
lip of east draw. And Blanco and I are both waving them this way, come on come on. And
they saw us and they turned around and went up the ridge, disappeared into the into the
oak. Erickson: Headed up to the top and I remember hitting the top getting burned pretty good
and as I crested over the top, Brad Hagh is right in front of me and uh he runs right
into a tree just wide open, full on, hits his head and it bounces him back and he gets
back up and we slide down through a rock slide. Hipke: Along this final hundred feet to the
top, the heat was getting unbearable. I don't remember carrying my Pulaski. I don't remember
dropping it. Uh, but they thought my Pulaski hit about 86 feet from the top. That's when it
must have been getting so hot that I must of started shielding my uh face and my ears.
And it was dark red, little cinder whirls were zipping by me, little gusts. The only thing
I'd ever thought I'd use my shelter for was to shield as the old style shelter. So
I I kept hiking along and was getting the shelter out and ended up bumbling it and dropping
it. And the heat was so bad, I don't remember exactly ,it's kinda a little fuzzy, but it's
like I tripped or I was jumping to get away from the heat and it felt all the world to me as
I was doing that like like a wave hit me. It's like being at the being at the beach
and not paying attention ya know, standing with your back to the ocean and a wave comes
and just knocks you down. And so I ended up on the ground as uh screaming like a little
girl. Exhaling. And the investigator told me that the air had been that knocked me down
had been super-heated. Uh that's what saved my lungs from getting fried. I got immediately
got back up and my hardhat was off and got knocked off, my pack, scrapped it or melted
off or part of the straps had slipped off. I was waddling up and I just punched my pack
lose and I just ran over to the top.of the ridge. Robertson: The fire was coming over the ridge,
over the top of us. As we made it off the lee side to protect ourselves from that, but
we didn't really know where to go. Then that's when uh Louie yelled at me to take your ear
plugs out and that's the first time that I got my ear plugs out from running my saw. Things
become a little bit more apparent. The sound of the fire. The sound of of our Dolmars and
the chainsaws blowing up as as the fire came over the ridge on 'em, that all that all became
very real. Gray: After I bailed off here, go down there
just a little ways I could hear my crew foreman, Bryan Scholz, and he's yelling what I think
heís yelling my name. He's yelling Kiiiiiiiiiip! So I stopped like did I just really hear that.
And he yells it again and yeah, I definitely heard it. So, I move back up the slope a little
ways and I'm thinking to myself, I don't really wanna go up there. Man, did Scholz
fall and brake his leg, I mean something, why is he hollering my name.
Scholz: I ran into uh one of my folks that had stopped moving.
Gray: I scribble up through a couple of trees and I can look up the slope just a little
ways and I can see Bryan Scholz and he's actually yelling Kim. He's yelling Kim's
name. It just sounded like Kip uh he's doing his best job to keep continuing to motivate her to move down. Scholz: So I had to get a little feisty with
her and tap her on the hardhat a couple of times to get her going.
Gray: As I'm standing down there looking at Bryan and Kim I see Eric Hipke um come
out. He had come out that west flank line and uh, and he was just barreling down the
slope there. His skin was burned off his hands and hanging down and uh he he literally was
still smoking. It it just I just couldn't really fathom what I was seeing at that second.
Hipke: And I was just taking these 10-foot bounding strides, tripping and falling, rolling,
getting back up again, rolling down. Felt great not fighting gravity anymore. And just
making a lot of distance, and no heat. Made it 200 feet down when I ran into Kevin Erickson
and Brad Hagh. Erickson: We're kinda gathering our wits
and uh we're just right over the crest at the hill and I'm like holy cow, those guys
didn't make it. And uh, it was probably oh maybe a minute later we see you coming down
and uh you don't look very good. And that's an understatement. The the the heat and the
orange and the stuff that's coming over the top of us.
Hipke: We're looking up at these hundred foot flame lengths just blasting over over
the ridgetop waiting for somebody else to come over for just a bit and we're talking
a bunch and we're like where's the rest, saying things like uh maybe they sheltered
or took an indirect way. And then there are spot fires starting all around us. And so
we moved down another couple hundred feet. Erickson: And I remember I did not want to
go down into that next drainage at all. I did not want to go down in there.
Hipke: Thank God Brad Hagh was with us because he had hiked up that that gully of the east
drainage twice and so he knew it was a safe way out, but for us looking at it, we'd just
seen how fast the fire raced up that the west drainage. Here we are in the east drainage
and the wind blowing up that also. The columns leaning leaning over and cinders dropping
all over and we I just thought we're just walking into a death trap. And can we even
get out that way and Brad Hagh reassured us that is the only way out.
Scholz: Circled around below the ridge here and ran into some of the BLM folks. Ran into
Tom Shepard. And uh I was pretty adamant at that point uh it was time to go. And uh it
was it was, um, a difficult decision to go down into the place that was very likely going
to burn up in a few minutes. But there was really no other alternative.
Ryerson: My folks were pretty scattered out and ya know, Laura Paulson was with me and
I could see a couple of our folks down in front of us. So ya know, and then when I got
the call from Butch saying go ahead and head down the east drainage then we started ya
know, yelling that out. Robertson: Somehow through all of that uh
trying to figure out how to get down this steep ground and dissected uh ridges down
into the bottom, I became separated from everybody. And I remember crewmembers yelling at each
other across the canyon. Scholz: Figure out where folks are. Figure
out everybody going in the right direction. Who's at the bottom. Do they have a radio.
Make contact. Ok are we good down there. Somebody's with a local, but, but for a few minutes there, it's disturbing when your folks are out there and you don't know where they're all at. Gray: I basically stayed with the group of
guys that that I scrambled up across the east drainage and got up on the little bench with.
As I came down further, one of them was still scrambling up that little scree slope right
there. And uh two of them were already up there so I followed suit, because it was it was
kinda an eerie feeling down in there in that steep little canyon. You just can't see anything
so uh. I scurried up there as well and uh, once we were up there we were able to look
down the canyon just a little bit and and put together that it was safe to proceed.
Tom Shepard and what I believe was the incident commander, Blanco, came right down the bottom.
Shepard: I looked up and my thought was oh geez, good. That's smart thinking. They're
getting up. They can see around this corner uh down down canyon and uh, they can act as
lookouts, and let us know if anything is coming up at us. Like it would do us any good anyway.
Gray: I do remember Tom Shepard hollering, looking up at us and hollering, saying come
on down this way and right out this drainage. Shepard: They moved on down uh along with
the rest of the crew and I stumbled along the rear just, numb with grief. Overcome with
the terrible sadness. It's like I just felt in my heart that I lost that part of my crew.
Nine people. That were down of the, down on the west fireline.
Hipke: On the lunch spot ridge, Longanecker hikes back to the lunch spot while the others
are hiking up towards H1. Longanecker: Head back towards the lunch spot
cuz to me that's the safest spot to be. There was pinyon and juniper trees that had burned
out and there was basically nothing below them. Ya know, so I just kinda hung out in
that area. Petrilli: Running up the ridge, there was
PJ, rocks , brush, ya know, so it wasn't just a clear shot, it was definitely picking
your way. Cooper: The eerie orange atmosphere and the
roar of the fire. It's really almost a surrealistic experience to be that close to a large fire
and be underneath the smoke column like that. Definitely the wind was pushing ash, pushing
dust, uh, embers around. By then we're all panicking. By then I'm really freaking myself.
I'm running up hill as fast as I can. I held on to all of my equipment. I think that's
just a subconscious thing you do. Petrilli: You know what, I don't need this
saw anymore. It's slowing me down. I give it a toss. Um, ya know and and I do remember
still, ya know, as I tossed that saw off my shoulder, it's like oh, I just tossed my
saw. Cooper: And people were trying to stay together,
you know, loosely, but you get down to a point in your mind where you realize your life is in danger
and you start to react about saving your life. It's not like you don't care about other
people, but it gets to a decision point where instinct takes over and you wanna live.
Petrilli: Keith Woods and Sonny Soto started, ya know, cramping up, ya know. Come
on, come on, come on, we gotta go, we gotta go Cooper: And uh we got up to where we pretty much ran out of steam. We were totally exhausted,
out of breath and uh, nowhere else to go. And it just happened to be the most bare,
clean spot on the finger ridge. Petrilli: They're starting to gather up up
there and Keith and Sonny are starting to fall behind. It's like come on you guys,
you know, you know, just a little bit further. Cooper: Felliciono didn't even take two seconds.
He instantly started scraping the spot for a shelter. I'm looking around at the density
of the fuel. I looked at the Missoula jumpers and said, hey guys I think we need to get
in our fire shelters. Petrilli: As I came upon the uh the group
of uh jumpers they had already started to deploy their fire shelters.
Cooper: And from about eight inches down, six inches down, every leaf, the dust, the
soot. Anything lose was getting sucked into the fire like a giant vacuum cleaner. It made
it more difficult to get into your shelter. You didn't just flop it open like a nice,
lose blanket like the training video and crawl into the thing. It's stringing out from you
like a flag in the wind and as you're trying to open this thing, I mean, it's just flapping
crazy. Ya know, wildly in the wind and uh, like I said, one loose grip and you would have
lost it. Um, so some people were actually fumbling with their shelters and starting
to mentally shut down between the noise, the confusion and the panic. And, ya know, the
psychological fact that you're actually going to crawl into this thing as a last resort.
It's almost like crawling into your coffin to see if it fits. Ya know, before you get
your burial. Um, pretty strange psychological feeling that you're committing, ya know,
your last hope to this piece of tin foil. Petrilli: No major flaming fronts or anything
impacting us but there were a few, ya know, ember showers blowing through blowing under
your shelter, ya know, you could definitely hear it coming.
Cooper: The thing that caused me the most alarm while I was in my shelter was trying
to breath. Um, it got so smoky even inside the shelter that I was choking on my own snot.
I could not stop from the mucus just pouring out of my face. I was constantly spitting
and spitting and my eyes were so watery I could barely see and I kept my corners of
my shelters tight, um, but it was getting to the point where I was afraid I would pass
out from lack of oxygen and then lose my grip on my shelter and my shelter would get blown
away. Petrilli: I called Mackey and I'm telling
him hey we're deploying shelters and I don't remember him replying. Um, I don't remember
any reply. Scholz: And all the way down, I was calling
John Kelso. Shepard: No response. I kept calling. Got
no response. Erickson: That it was uh, a weird feeling
seeing these folks coming in off the side drainages on both sides. And and they were
in shock. Maybe I looked just like they did, but they were zombies walking, and uh big
eyes, and uh that was a really scary, ya know. I knew somebody didn't make it. I didn't
know who, but I knew some folks didn't make it. Shepard: We headed on down the east canyon and all the time, thinking, wow we're gonna
get met with a huge wall of flame coming up at any point at any turn down this draw.
Robertson: And once you get into the bottom of it, there's there's many places where
uh there's absolutely no way to get out because it is so steep and cliffy and um. And so you're really committed once you get into the bottom of that drainage and that was a very uneasy feeling.
You've got wind in your face. You've got, you've got spot fires on your side. And you
have no way of getting out of it until it ends.
Gray: There was people's gear scattered around through here. There were people dropping their
packs and just keeping their shelters. Hipke: I'm stumbling, I'm starting to get
shockier with the wounds drying and they're helping me over rocks.
Robertson: There's rock faces that uh are essentially probably little water falls when
waters going over them. I encountered a number of those on my way down. Every time I walked
up to one of those I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get through it, get over
it, especially when you hit that bottom one and you walk up and it just drops off and
looking around to figure out how you're going to get down there without hurting yourself.
All of them were luckily, traversable, you could get around them. You have to pick your
way and they're, it's not easy. It wasn't just walking down a drainage, it was scrambling
and rock climbing in many cases. Scholz: You come around the bend and suddenly
you can see the freeway. you can hear the cars and pop out into the sunlight, out from under
the column and uh you know you're going to make it and it was a great feeling. Doehring: Took a picture of Derek along one of those dry waterfalls, rock deals cuz at
that point you could see the highway and we're like, alright we made it. Took a picture. We
were pretty thankful. Hipke: We finally made it to the highway and
it's the off ramp right there after the South Canyon off ramp. Ya know, cars zipping by
at 70 miles an hour. Erickson: Sarah was the first one other than
our group that I recognized. And I mean the hug she gave me was almost broke me in half
and uh, that was a relief, ya know, there was also that, between us, that folks probably
didnít make. Doehring: And Kevin was walking around and
I realized that he had gotten burned on the back of his neck. And yeah, he was kinda pacing
around and I was like maybe you should get looked at, too.
Erickson: Jump in the ambulance with you and road back in.
Ryerson: Limited information where everybody was at. I was assuming that the folks on the
west side had ya know, hiked out on the west drainage.
Shepard: There was a radio transmission that from up Canyon Creek Estates and somebody
was saying hey I see fire shelters across the way, ya know. And I got my hopes up. Going
maybe they made it. Hipke: Thirty minutes after the final person
makes it to the freeway, the fire burns out the east drainage. Tom Shepard, Bryan Scholz,
Sarah Doehring and Sonny Archuleta get rides back to Canyon Creek Estates where they meet
up with 30 smokejumpers recently bused in from Grand Junction.
Doehring: So there's a lot of people there and uh, yeah, they're making calls, they're
asking us when was the last time we saw them and ya know, the fire was just ripping at
that point and eventually the smoke kinda cleared.
Shepard: Sure enough, you could see a cluster of fire shelters over there and it turned
out to be the smokejumpers that were down on the west fireline. So my heart sank once again. Cooper: I do recall a retardant plane coming over and the fire had been dying down. We
were pretty much staying inside our shelters cuz the smoke was so bad. The actual threat
from flames had passed. The wind was really blowing. I'm sure it was terribly
rough flying. The, uh second drop was almost eye-level, ya know, or below us but the wind
blew that retardant right into us. Making numerous radio calls, trying to get a head count. Who's
where, who's on the fire, ya know, and where are they.
Doehring: They said there was definitely denial in my mind about, ya know, where everybody was and
ya know, even though once Tony did his head count and we knew who was with him and once
they came back and there was still some missing folks it's like, oh this can't be happening.
They gotta be somewhere, you know. We'll hear from them soon. Erickson: Stuff was burned out and starting to cool down and not as much smoke so I figured
I would go up to see what, how those guys were doing.
Cooper: As the smoke cleared, we got out of our shelters. We checked everybody.
Petrilli: We were trying to come up with a plan, ya know, knowing that we had missing
missing firefighters out there. Cooper: Could look across the gutted out basin
of brush that had burned up during the blow up and I could see what looked like a high
impact cargo chute billowing in the wind. Petrilli: We just started, ya know, all of us hiking
over to that to that area and, ya know, that's when the, ya know, uh, fatalities. Cooper: And that was, of course, extremely grim moment for everybody there.
Petrilli: We came up on the lower group, um, of the of firefighters and, ya know, I was
the guy that was talking on the radio so I think I was communicating with the helicopter
pilot. He was out searching uh through the air and uh, um, ya know, I told him it's
like we found uh, some uh, some of the firefighters. Um and uh we came back and asked, ya know,
do we need medical. And it's like uh, what do you say. Um, ya know, I didn't know what
to say. So I just said yeah, ya.. no, it's too late for that.
Shepard: Tony replied back it's too late. And, yeah. We, we lost it. Scholz took off
down the road um. I was just heart broken, just sick. Um. Tom Fitzpatrick um a jumper
from Redmond that I knew just happened to be standing next to me, we shared an embrace.
We hugged and I just started wandering around. Petrilli: Walking up the uh hill, finding
the second group. Cooper: Ya know, I walked up on Jim Thrash
was the first one I walked up on. And uh, I recognized him right away and uh. Ya know,
when you're in that state of mind, with everything that you just went through, you're not thinking real clearly and I was first
thing thought that came to my mind was oh my God, how am I going to tell Holly. Ya know,
I didn't think about well, some Forest Service official will go to her home or whatever.
For some reason I'm thinking I found him, I'm going to have to be the one to tell her.
And I was thinking what am I going to say, what am I going to do.
Petrilli: Walking further up the hill, um finding uh, it was it was Scott Blecha, ya
know, it was, that was hard. That was hard to see that guy. He was close. Very close. Doehring: They were going to go up and do search and rescue and asked if I wanted to
go cuz I'd been up there, I knew the area and at that time I was like, not me. Can't
do it. And but I believe Sonny got in the helicopter and went up there again and I just
couldn't. I'd seen enough. I'm not going up there. Cooper: And we're standing up there at the top of the hill with not so much of a twig
left that hasn't been consumed. Here's this like four-foot snake that somehow lived through
the fire, probably went underground, and had came back out. Sort of a weird twist to the
very end of the fire to see this, ya know, snake, ya know, sign of evil, slithering through
the burned brush. And it was uh, after that it was a helicopter ride off the hill and
going through everything else that people go through. Hipke: It was not until two days later before they found the bodies of Rich Tyler and Rob
Browning in a gully at the head of the west drainage. Their view from H2 would have been of the fire racing up towards H1, sweeping its way
towards them, with the prevailing wind driving it into the east drainage while the rest of
us were forced down the uninviting east drainage. Tyler and Browning had a bit more time to
move along the ridge away from the advancing fire before heading towards bare ground, with
flight helmets in hand, presumably hoping for helicopter pickup. With the brush obscuring
their view, what they couldn't see was the 50-feet deep gully in their path, where they
got trapped as the full force of the fire hit them. Shepard: As far as healing and recovery, it's interminable task it seems like to get back
to where you wanna be in your mind and it's taken me forever. This long to to, ya know,
even talk about it. It took 15 years for me before I went back and I walked up that hill. I walked
that last fireline. Didn't know how I was going to react to that. Needless to say, it
was an emotional, emotional time for me. But I'm glad I did that cuz that helped. Today's
firefighter has I think a much greater safety awareness. If they see something they don't
understand or see something that they think is out of whack, they're encouraged, today,
to speak up, ask about it and ya know, it takes, it takes 20 people to run a hotshot
crew. Not just one it takes 20 and and every voice is important and there just could be
something that someone misses along the way that the newest recruit notices and brings
to the supervisor's attention and ends up saving some lives. So That's where I'm at today.
Everybody's got a voice.
