Abstract
On 30 June 2013, nineteen men, the Prescott Fire Department (PFD), Granite Mountain Hot Shot Crew (GMHS), quasi-military Wildland Fire Crew, died on the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona. Little has been done to dispel the September 2013 Serious Accident Investigation Team’s (SAIT) Serious Accident Investigation Report (SAIR) no fault conclusions. This infamous event defies reason. Newly revealed Public Records and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Requests evidence indicate the YH Fire “story” is inaccurate. These newly discovered records suggest (1) was there a rogue firing operation; (2) disparate treatment regarding Public Records; and (3) Agency employee “guidance” and direction to not discuss the YH Fire contradict professed “lessons learned” objectives. Attempts by so-called “leaders” to deter WFs from discussing and truth-seeking of this tragedy abound. The “wildfire fatalities are unavoidable” argument is contentious. The authors maintain that wildfire fatalities can be reduced notwithstanding that many naysayers continue to fervently disagree.
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to express their gratitude to: Dr. Ted Putnam for his Human Factors insight; WantsToKnowTheTruth; the two Yarnell Hill Fire Eyewitness Hikers; sources mandated silence due to ‘direction’ and ‘guidance;’ all those troubled by the event; and WFs, FFs, and others that encourage us. To those who lost family, friends, and loved ones, the authors and most WFs and FFs think about those young men every day. They inspire us to research and write toward reducing fatalities.
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Schoeffler, F.J., Honda, L., Collura, J.A. (2020). Formerly Unrevealed Public Records Should Change the Account of What Occurred on June 30, 2013. In: Boring, R. (eds) Advances in Human Error, Reliability, Resilience, and Performance. AHFE 2019. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 956. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20037-4_3
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