Boreal B[l]og

In late September 1966, Dr. Taylor passed back the first paper I wrote in his English 1 class.  I had worked hours on this paper, written 15 drafts, back when we used typewriters.  Each draft was poorly written.  I can still see the angle of the red “E” on the paper.  I was devastated.  

“But I worked so hard!” is what I told my stunned parents. That paper alone kept me off the Dean’s List for the only time in my college career.  I got a C minus in the course.  I got an A in English 2.  One of the reasons I like science and math is that subjectivity is less an issue.  I did not suddenly become a good writer by the spring of 1967, any more than I was such a poor writer in the autumn of 1966.

Spring 2003.  I am teaching a statistics class for business students in Nogales and give  a group a B on their presentation.  One man said: “But we worked so hard!! We deserved an A.”  I explained that while hard work is a virtue, such does not itself deserve an “A”.  Results matter.  For every Olympian, there are hundreds of others who worked just as hard or harder but didn’t have the ability or the time, got hurt, had a bad day during the trials, and didn’t make it to the top.  Hard work is necessary but not sufficient.

I worked for years to become a better writer.  It was never a goal of mine, but I discovered that I communicate better by writing than by speaking.  I have published 60 papers in 9 different fields; won two writing awards; been an astronomy columnist for the newspaper for 20 years, writing nearly 800 columns; and been a 9 year columnist for the medical society.  I have  240 posts on my blog.  I’ve written several op-eds in the newspaper, and 75% of the letters to the editor I write get published.  I am a writer.  I am not an exceptional writer, but I am good.  Last July, my letter to the editor appeared in The New Yorker, not easy to do.

I’ve heard hospital advertisements saying how hard their staff work to care for patients.   I assume people work hard.  What I do want to know is should I get operated on, and I’m a clean case (no bowel perforation or gun shot wound, for example), my likelihood of a wound infection is less than 1%, not 4%, which it was in the hospital where I was medical director. Hard working people who work in bad systems deliver hardship.  A hospital that has a 3% higher wound infection rate for 10,000 clean cases a year has 300 more wound infections.  The human cost is significant in longer hospitalizations and possibility of permanent complications, including death and lawsuits.  The cost of these 300 infections is several million dollars.  Yet we still argue that quality costs money. I said twenty years ago, in vain, that quality saved money.

I worked hard to get my Master’s in statistics, and while I obtained it my hard work didn’t substitute for my inability to become a successful statistical consultant.  I trained hard to be a platinum bike rider, to complete the 112 mile El Tour de Tucson under 5 hours, and I missed it by 7 minutes.  I worked as much as many of the riders who beat me.  I achieved my potential, and it was less than theirs.

The concept that hard work is all people need to do to escape poverty annoys me.  Mitt Romney’s son got $10 million to start his business.  Very few of us get that “seed money.”  Many connections get some kids into the top schools, where they meet other people, network, and get good jobs.  It isn’t all hard work.  Some is genetics; there are some very talented people.  A lot of it is networking.  If one is good at networking, one will do better than somebody like me, who is not good at it.

I knew David Levy nearly 30 years ago when I was an astronomy columnist for the paper and he had yet to discover his first comet.  David discovered his first comet and had the personality that led to his connection with Eugene Shoemaker.  That led to Comet Shoemaker-Levy and Mr. Levy’s becoming famous.  I was dismissed from the paper with hardly a “by your leave” in 2004, after 20 years of writing.  Networking….and luck.  No comet in 1994,  no fame.

A Nurse’s Aide who is a single mother works hard on the night shift in a nursing home.  She does things that would repel most.  I know, because I have helped these women change soiled patients, dress bed sores, try to get the patients out of bed, and dodge blows that demented patients throw at them.  She makes a little more than minimum wage, but she works hard.  She might not have been born with great intelligence, and she might not have done well in school. Many of our politicians weren’t great students.  Vice President Dan Quayle couldn’t spell “potato.”  Arizona’s governor didn’t go to college. But these NAs aren’t blue bloods.  Yes, I wish they hadn’t gotten pregnant, but the Republican Right is trying to defund Planned Parenthood, which will exacerbate the problem.  We all make bad choices.  These women are going to be poor all their lives, no matter how hard they work.

Achieving success requires many factors, in addition to hard work and intelligence.  It is being in the right place at the right time, knowing the right people, and a lot of luck, too.  A lot of luck.

A country that pays rock stars, athletes, and entertainers millions of dollars, most of which is taxed at far too low a rate, has its priorities wrong.  A country where financiers who only move money around and collect fees ought to tax their bonuses, which annually are more than I earned in my lifetime, at 80%.  Teachers provide more value than these people, and research has shown that.  I have forgotten what rock concerts I have seen; I was lied to by financial advisors about the economy in 2007, and the list of sports stars who went bankrupt is long. I can still remember the name of my kindergarten teacher, my high school math, chemistry, and physics teachers, all of whom had a profound effect on me.

No, Mitt, and Sarah, and an especial NO to Ted and Rand; most of the millions of poor people in this country are not lazy.  A lot of them have decent ideas, want to work, and want to work hard.  If you think hard work is all that is necessary, then start with yourself in Congress, by working hard for THIS country, rather than your petty party. Your behavior is shameful, and if I were a believer, I’d call you horrible sinners.  When a person fails to achieve his potential through his own behavior, that is a shame.  When another prevents him, deliberately, from achieving his potential, that is …. I don’t have the word for it.

Perhaps if I were a better writer or had the right connections I’d find that word.

THE “10 AND 18”

Ten Standard Fire Orders

1. Fight fire aggressively, but provide for safety first.
2. Initiate all actions based on current and expected fire behavior.
3. Recognize current weather conditions and obtain forecasts.
4. Ensure instructions are given and understood.
5. Obtain current information on fire status.
6. Remain in communication with crew members, your supervisor, and adjoining forces.
7. Determine safety zones and escape routes.
8. Establish lookouts in potentially hazardous situations.
9. Retain control at all times.
10. Stay alert, keep calm, think clearly, act decisively.

Eighteen watch-out situations

1. Fire not scouted and sized up.
2. In country not seen in daylight.
3. Safety zones and escape routes not identified.
4. Unfamiliar with weather and local factors influencing fire behavior.
5. Uninformed on strategy, tactics, and hazards.
6. Instructions and assignments not clear.
7. No communications link with crewmembers/supervisors.
8. Constructing line without safe anchor point.
9. Building fireline downhill with fire below.
10. Attempting frontal assault on fire.
11. Unburned fuel between you and the fire.
12. Cannot see main fire, not in contact with anyone who can.
13. On a hillside where rolling material can ignite fuel below.
14. Weather is getting hotter and drier.
15. Wind increases or is changing direction.
16. Getting frequent spot fires across the line.
17. Terrain and fuels make escape to safety zone difficult.
18. Taking a nap near the fireline. 

1949: Mann Gulch fire.  Thirteen died when the fire blew up due to strong winds.  From the time trouble was recognized until the men were dead was 11 minutes.  Those who died did so running uphill.  They died from asphyxiation or burns.  The fire was not affecting houses or civilian lives.  We had a culture from the 1910 fire, where 87 died, that all fires were to be put out before 10 a.m. the next day.  Ironically, this has created many problems we face today.

1994: South Canyon fire, near Glenwood Springs, Colorado.  In early July, a lightning strike started it.  Because some residents complained about smoke, a decision was made to fight the fire, which was not endangering any structures or lives, and was 5 acres when a decision was made to attack it, despite its being one of the lowest priority fires in Colorado at the time, where there were at least 35 fires burning, and resources were stretched.  When the fire was initially scouted, the difficulty and the risk were noted, and recommendations were made not to fight it in that particular area.  Catastrophes occur when there are major errors, but they also occur when there is a concatenation of smaller errors.  This fire was an example of the latter.  It was attacked because a person complained of the smoke–an inadequate reason.  Had the fire grown, it might well have been clearly inaccessible to attack in the place where the people who attacked it subsequently died.  It might have been fought differently.  I do wonder whether those who complained about the smoke ever wondered whether they were culpable.

Fourteen people died, including most of the Prineville, Oregon hotshot crew, when they descended a hill, in this worrisome area, in thick growth to build fire lines. Several members thought this maneuver was dangerous, because they had unburned fuel, extremely volatile fuel,  between them and a fire they couldn’t see (Watch out #9). Nobody spoke up, except some smokejumpers elsewhere on the fire, who did not think what they were asked to do was a good idea.  Eight of the ten major rules for fire fighters, 12 of 18 Watch Out guidelines were eventually compromised or violated.

A dry cold front came through that afternoon, predicted, but the information wasn’t relayed to the firefighters.  At 1520 hours, concerns were raised, and some left the area.  At 1600 hours, all left, but sawyers were still carrying their saws, and many were walking.  Twenty minutes later, they were dead, shelters not deployed.  Not only can fire move faster than we can run (this one moved 14 mph), superheated gases and radiant heat can kill people at a great distance, and winds can knock them over.  On Mann Gulch, winds lifted a survivor up and down three times.  The idea that fire suddenly erupts and people die with no warning is not true.  Fire does suddenly erupt, but usually there are hints.  There were such hints at South Canyon.  There were draws, and there was wind, an ideal situation for fire spread, and one that had been previously noted.  Many firefighters didn’t appreciate the severity of the situation until it was too late, for the safety zones were too far away and uphill.

The recommendations after South Canyon were hoped to make fire fighting safer.  They didn’t.

Thirty Mile Fire, Washington State, 2001.  Four fire fighters died after deploying their shelters in a rock field when a small fire earlier in the day suddenly exploded, overwhelming the crew. The problem was another concatenation of errors–virtually no sleep the night before (impairs judgment equivalent to being legally drunk), going suddenly to a fire that they hadn’t planned on, faulty equipment, slow start, and pulling in the lookout.  At the lunch spot, not a safety zone, two spot fires were noted up a dead end road (which had not been previously appreciated when the group arrived at the fire), and tankers were sent to the spots.  At this point, the video given by survivors stops, and the listener is told to put himself in the position of the fireboss, rather than knowing what happened later.  The fireboss sent more help to the spot fires, had no lookout to look at what the main fire was doing, and ultimately, the whole group was cut off from escaping from the lunch site the other way.  Instead, they went up the dead end road (which also had civilians present) to what appeared to be a safe area, with a stream to the east, a rock slide with no growth (but fuel between the rocks), and the road.

Thirty minutes before the fire overwhelmed the crew, many were taking pictures of themselves, not looking for safe spots or beginning shelter deployment, not knowing this would be the last picture of them alive.

Shelter deployment means that people were in an area they should not have been in.  They were too far from the safety zone.  That happens.  Shelters are a last ditch effort to save oneself.  Had everybody deployed on the road, they would likely all have survived.  But some deployed on the rocks.  They died of asphyxiation.  Many at the time were not adequately trained to deal with shelters, which one must be able to get in either standing or lying.  Several wore fusees and backpacks into the shelter; fusees burn at 375 degrees and can ignite if in contact with the shelter itself.  Some lost gloves, which were in retrospect available and nearby, and others left backpacks too close to the shelter, where they burned, adding fuel near the shelter.  I don’t know what I would do if I were in that situation.  I haven’t been trained; all of these people were.  Many deploying shelters do so when there is a great deal of wind from the fire, sometimes ripping the shelter from a person’s hand. When I saw this haunting video, I said to myself, “When the tanker on the downwind spot fire radioed that they needed additional help, that is when I would have pulled out.  Everything is going wrong on this day, and we need to regroup.”

We get back to the basic part of fire fighting.  It is dangerous, and everybody who fights fire knows that.  My experience is nearly nil, only having driven a water tanker on a controlled burn in 1995.  The culture had been not to question orders, and there is a degree of pride in being able to handle adversity.  Nobody likes to lose a fire, nobody wants to say that they couldn’t attack it.  Nobody wants to see houses destroyed.

What I don’t remember about 1994, although I could be wrong, was that we didn’t refer to the fallen firefighters as heroes.  They were professionals, and they were sadly victims. The fire should have been allowed to burn, nobody should have been deployed in any area that was unsafe, regardless of the risk to property and especially not because somebody complained about the smoke.  And that brings me to 19 years later, a lot closer to home.

2013:  Arizona.  Nineteen firefighters die fighting the Yarnell Hill fire.  The video on the Web site was quite syrupy, and I use that word exactly as I mean to. Nothing was mentioned about the “10 and 18”.  There was a discussion about the sudden, fast fire shift, which is a known phenomenon.   I read at least one hundred comments by others, many of whom are firefighters.  A lookout was posted, and he radioed that the winds had shifted and he was leaving.  What we don’t know is critical:  why did the Hotshots leave a safe area to hike downhill, into areas where they couldn’t see the fire, into areas almost impassable on a normal day?  We have heard remarkable things about the Superintendent, who put this group together in half the time of others crews.  Did anybody of the 18 others speak up about violation of the “10 and 18?”  Or was there a culture of expertise, like we have had in medicine and aviation, where nobody speaks up to a leader who is twice their age?

We heard that the fire was moving at unbelievable speeds of 12 mph.  It was moving faster at Storm King.  Winds were expected, but the way the winds shifted was not appreciated.  There were 2 minutes to cut a place and to deploy shelters, which meant that the fire was about 600 meters away before action was taken.  Were the firefighters not aware of how close it was?  At least 5 of the 10  and 10 of the 18 were violated.  Why?  We don’t know.  More than one report is comparing the Yarnell Hill fire with the South Canyon fire.  Both were initially small, both were in difficult terrain with extreme drought, and both were handled by hotshots.  Both had a major, predictable wind event, both had unburned fuel between the firefighters and the main fire, and both led to disasters.

This was NOT an Act of God.  That statement to me is a copout, an excuse for not trying to understand circumstances that people should understand, and a way to sweep the matter under a rug.  Mistakes were made.  Thunderstorm downdrafts, erratic winds, Venturi effects, plentiful dry fuel, and a hotter than usual fire are all understandable.  Whether we can predict what they will do is another matter, and evidence is beginning to mount that our modeling of fire behavior is inadequate due to increased size of fires because of suppression, climate change allowing bark beetles to survive winters, and more houses in the wildland-urban interface.  Ability to recognize danger and to speak up is part of firefighter training.  If we cannot adequately predict the worst case scenario, and plan for it, then we have no business sending people into harm’s way, except to save lives, not property.  Worst case scenario planning is why firefighters are required to have safety zones and exits to them, both hopefully plural.

Just as Challenger repeated 17 years later with Columbia, almost to the day, with many of the same cultural problems still persisting in NASA, so did South Canyon repeat 19 years later with Yarnell Hill, almost to the day.  I suspect, like NASA, there are still cultural problems in the firefighting community.  Hopefully, the investigation will uncover these issues, and the wildland firefighting community will address exactly how we will approach fires, what we will do, and what simply will not be tolerated.   We didn’t learn from Mann Gulch in 1949; 45 and 52  years later we had South Canyon and 30 Mile fires respectively.  We didn’t learn enough from them, and 12 years after 30 Mile we had Yarnell Hill.  My prediction:  it will recur.  My hope:  It won’t.

No more purple ribbons.