 Now let's go back to the Cedar Fire and see what actually happened on Orchard Lane. At about 1240, the task force leader, confident that engine 6162 was in charge of their situation, was leaving 920 when he received a radio message from the engine at 902, stating that they had spotting from the fire operation below them. He tries to drive to 902 but is cut off by a dozer working in the area. The fire captain by this time had picked up the engineer and drove south to 1038. He informs the engine captain assigned to 1038 that he is going to fire out around the residents and the engineer fires an arc from south to north around 1038. About this time, the flank of the main fire begins a run to the northeast from the bottom of the drainage. Burning upslope and upcanyon influenced by a combination of upcanyon and westerly winds, the fire forms a major front which burns in continuous fuels directly toward the area of 920 and 930 Orchard Lane. During this time, the bulldozer operator near 902 was notified by his transport driver on the south end of Orchard that fire activity was increasing. He disengages and finds his way to a safety zone. About five minutes after the task force leader left 920 Orchard, the crew of engine 6162 notices an increase in fire activity and gather at the engine to talk. They had completely burned the woodpile near the driveway and had approximately 140 feet of black from the driveway down into the drainage. The brush line at the bottom of their firing operation was occasionally torching and started to increase in intensity. When I took that picture, Captain McDonald had decided that it was time for us to stop whatever we were doing and to come back up and meet at the engine. It was getting to that point where he wanted us all together as a crew. It was time to man the hose lines and see where we were going to go from there. At that point I was standing with my back to the engine and I turned around and there was just a straight standing up just wall flame that posed no hazard to us. It was just standing there. I thought great photo opportunity. So I stepped out a little bit from the back of the engine, fished my camera up out of my Nomex and started figuring out which would be the best angle to get. I wanted to get the back of the engine in the picture and I wanted to get big flames in the back of the picture. There was no radiant heat to speak of. I could have stood there all day long. There was absolutely no radiant heat. That wall of fire, if we were to walk forward a little bit and look over the edge, that wall of fire started where the brush line was. The brush line was burning. There was nothing burning between other than our brush pile and maybe a few little bushes here or there. There was nothing burning between us and nothing to burn. We had burned everything out. Captain MacDonald had thrown some fuses out there to put even a little more distance between us and whatever was coming up the hill. He had done that already so we were just thinking that's those fuses doing their job. Again, no wind. When I took that photo standing at the back of the engine, this was the wall of fire that you would have been looking at. Again, 140 feet away. We're thinking that it's our fire that we started. It probably was. The majority of it was the flame that I was taking the picture of was probably the majority of it was our fire flame that we had put on the ground with those fuses. At this point, we have blackened all of this area. The brush that you see here is all fresh stuff. There was nothing like that at the time. It was all just grass. There were a few sparse little oak patches, but for the most part, this was all just black dirt. We burned all the way down to this line that you see probably 15 feet below me. There was 15 foot tall manzanitas that were just really black, but again, we blackened everything between us and the brush line. Directly following that picture is when engineer Rucker told me to get back behind the engine. I stepped back behind the engine and it wasn't 20 seconds later and everything broke loose. At this point, I had taken my photograph and Steve had said to get back behind the engine, so I took my camera and I put my camera away. The crew was all here together. I turned and I put my back up against the engine again. Within 15 seconds, the sky went dark. It got really, really hot and that column of fire that had been standing up laid over on its side and was now poking us under the bottom of the engine. There were embers and heat and smoke and everything coming just sideways. It got so hot that you just couldn't breathe. Like I said, that all happened within 15 to 20 seconds of me taking that picture. When things started getting bad, when it folded over on us, we didn't even think about taking the engine in the first place because we never thought that the engine was going to be impacted by the heat or the flames or anything. We expected that our safe refuge in the house was just going to get hot and maybe really smoky and we'd have to go in the house and wait it out until it kind of burned around us and then we'd go back out and deal with whatever spot fires we had to put out. We never in a million years thought that we were going to be impacted by that much heat and fire and especially that quickly. We never thought that it was going to fold over on us in 20 seconds and almost be unescapable. At that point, Barrett was at the front of the engine along with Captain McDonald and Engineer Rucker and myself were towards the back of the engine. I immediately turned and started following Barrett. Captain McDonald was staying back to make sure that everybody, he was going to be the last guy up the stairs. We made it to those steps there. I watched Barrett bound up the steps and he was running through about waist-deep flames from all the junipers that were now on fire there on the patio. I hit the second step and tripped as I got to the top following flat on all fours and I was just completely engulfed in flame. Then I got up real quick and made my way back to the back of the patio where Barrett and I then ran down the walkway to the back door as we pre-planned to make entry into the house. Barrett kicked the door once. I ran up and kicked the door once and then we got wise and picked up the axe and broke a pane of glass and reached in and unlocked the door and opened it. At that point I was fully expecting to be pushed in, being pushed from the behind to get into the house even though it was totally livable outside there at that moment behind the house we were being completely shielded. We could have just stood there but the plan was to get in the house so we were getting in the house. We turned around and Captain McDonald and Steve weren't there and so at that point we immediately turned around and ran back down towards the corner of the house and there was just a huge wall of fire and flame that there was no way that we were going to be able to go back out. As Captain McDonald and Engineer Smith were looking down the driveway at the approaching fire from the north, Captain McDonald realized that he was feeling a tremendous amount of heat on his back. As he turned to look back over the rear of the engine in a south or southeasterly direction he saw huge orange glow through the trees coming at them and at that point in time he did not understand what was going on and where that fire was coming from, why it was even there and that was really the basis for his decision to give the order to take refuge in the house. There was a situation that was occurring that he didn't understand and couldn't make sense of and that's the point in time in which the order was given. After Sean and Barrett were given the order to go into the house and they headed in that direction Captain McDonald observed them go around the back corner of the house to safety. He then turned looking for Engineer Rucker who was still standing near the rear of the engine. At that point in time he called for him to start moving towards the house for the second time. Steve took a couple of steps in the opposite direction and turned back towards Captain McDonald and fell to the ground on his hands and knees. He got up on his own and continued a few more steps. At that point he turned and fell into the Boxwood bushes along the driveway and with Captain McDonald's assistance he was pulled out of the bushes. They proceeded up to the steps, up to steps. Captain McDonald was helping Steve at that point in time. About midway across the patio Steve fell for the final time. Captain McDonald made an attempt to get him up. He couldn't, he turned basically 180 degrees facing the engine or the canyon below and tried to drag Steve around the corner to safety and he couldn't move him. At that point Captain McDonald was being burned fairly severely. He did make a radio call for firefighter down at that point on the tactical channel and he knew that if he stayed any longer he would be burned very, very severely so he had to leave Steve and go look for the other crew members so that hopefully together they could rescue Steve. So at that point he moved around the corner of the house. It was fairly clear at the same time that's when he met Sean and Barrett coming towards him and they discussed going back for Steve and determined that the patio was no longer tenable at that point and they took a refuge in the house. From the time that I took that picture, standing behind the engine to the point where we saw Captain McDonald badly burned stepping out from the flame front was less than a minute, maybe 45 seconds to a minute. Inside the house the crew was unable to call for help because the captain dropped their only handheld radio trying to rescue the crew member. After a few minutes the two uninjured firefighters attempted to exit the house for a rescue. One made it to the front of the engine but the other was forced back inside by a wave of heat. Seeing the crew member down on the patio, Kreps advanced the bumper line towards him but ran out of water after only about ten seconds because the rear hose line had burnt through and drained the tank. A heat wave forced him into the cab of the engine which was intact and still running. Fearing the others would come looking for him, he took a deep breath of air and made his way back into the house. By this time the north end of the house was burning and smoke banked down inside the house to waste level. Realizing there was no hope for the down crew member, they all made their way to the engine, disconnected the protection lines and drove down the driveway through heavy smoke towards Orchard Lane. At 1309 they made a second firefighter down announcement on the command net using the engine's mobile radio. On the south end of Orchard Lane, they made contact with another arriving hotshot crew and told them that they had been burned. By 1327 an ambulance arrived at their location. The captain remained hospitalized for 28 days with first, second and third degree burns over 28% of his body. The two crew members were treated and released. The subsequent investigations of the Cedar Fire incident could not explain why Steve Rucker did not proceed immediately to the house with the rest of the crew. Some speculate that he may not have been positioned far enough behind the protection of the engine to prevent an intake of superheated air and this heat blast may have left him disoriented. The homeowners who have since rebuilt their home have dedicated a sitting and meditation area on the spot where Steve died. This incident can be looked at from so many different aspects that all students of fire should read and study the investigation reports. To hear about just some of the lessons learned from this incident, let's go back to Sean Kreps and Dan Northern. Well, I'm here to tell you that if we had not been in our full PPE and by full PPE I mean we were in Nomex pants, long-sleeved cotton t-shirt, Nomex outers and I had a structure hood on. We had our helmets on, goggles down, face shrouds buttoned up and gloves on. The entire time that we were during this operation, Captain McDonald insisted on that. Even though there was no active fire around other than what we were putting on the ground, at that point he insisted that we be in full PPE and I'm here to tell you that if we hadn't been in full PPE when that hit there would have been four fatalities and not just one. I can't stress that enough. You have to be ready to go and fight immediately when you step off that engine because 15 seconds, 20 seconds is not enough time to try and unfurl your shroud and put it around you and get your gloves on and get buttoned up. It's just not enough time and that's how fast things can happen. Fire behavior. I think that it's one of the factors in every fatality. How do we teach firefighters fire behavior? I think it's very difficult. We might be able to talk in generalities about fire behavior, the impacts of the weather aspect, fuel, topography and all those things, but how are they going to come together on this very spot? It's very, very difficult, very difficult. Especially when there's other things going on that we don't have any knowledge about. It's important to ask questions. What else is going on? What are the other plans here on this ridge today that might impact our operation? Unfortunately, sometimes the unexpected occurs and we have to be prepared for that also. How do we do that? We have to really, really, really ask some questions sometimes. When we see someone on our piece of ground with a firing mechanism, it's time to go stop that person, have a face-to-face conversation and find out what's going on. There may be some good information there. Maybe the crews could work together in this environment and do some good work, but that's definitely something that you need to do. When you see that person on your piece of line with a firing utensil, out there you need to go confront them and find out what the plan is. I think you need to disengage if you can't determine what that plan is because when it comes to firing, it's the only friendly fire mechanism that we use on the fire line where we can actually injure or kill other firefighters. So it's a very dangerous tool if not used appropriately. Lessons learned. Values at risk. The house was vacant. The property owners had already left. I know for a fact that given the choice, they would have preferred that no one died or was injured protecting their home. I know for a fact that they would have gladly allowed their house to burn down rather than to have this event occur here. And I'm pretty sure that that's the case with most homeowners. So I think as firefighters we have to remember that can-do attitude is a great thing, but it's not our responsibility. This house is not our responsibility. We didn't put it here. We're here to do the best job we can and go home safely. And that's our ultimate goal, that we all go home safely. And to that end, we need to make sure that that's on the forefront of our mind and that when it's time to give up on a piece of property because it's just too dangerous, we need to give up. Whether we've dug a line, spent hours prepping whatever it is, when it's time to leave, it's time to leave. There's no house, there's no fire engine worth an injury or the fatality of a firefighter. As we talk about October 29th, 2003, when Steve was killed at 920 Orchard Lane, the fire basically burned out due to weather conditions and there was a huge drizzle on the fire on the 31st, just a couple of days. This was the only active piece of fire on the fire at that point in time on the 29th. It's a small finger, a few hundred acres at most, that came over Highway 78-79. So not only was it real close to the actual end of the fire due to the change in weather conditions, but it's also a very small portion of a much, much larger fire. Following Steve's death, the Nevada Fire District really took a hard look at its operations, all of its wildland operations, and we made some difficult decisions. We have decided to actually expend quite a few funds on making sure that all of our personnel have radios. We now have webgear that's not flammable because one of the factors we found is Captain McDonald's webgear was disintegrating from the heat as he went up the steps and he was losing his equipment, which could include shelters and everything else. So we've made some changes there, but I think inside we've made some philosophical changes. We have policies now that talk about firing when it's appropriate and when it's not. Basically for us, we do not conduct firing operations unless we're working for somebody that's qualified to do that. Burnout operations are still within our purview and we will do that. We have policies on turn down assignments and those are out there for our people to use, kind of their tickets, so to speak, to get out of a bad situation. They have the right to turn down an assignment because it's outside of an internal policy for our organization and that's what makes it important. We also have a structure protection policy that places firefighter safety in front of everything else that's considered when you look at a house in the interface and you're making a decision to stay and protect it, to prevent and leave, or to not defend it whatsoever. And we're trying to train to those policies and adhere to those policies out in the field when we make our decisions. One of the things that we learned from the investigation of the Cedar Fire is that communications on this particular division were very sketchy. There was no way for the strike team leader to contact the division who was quite a few miles away. The issues there are not important. The important lesson to be learned is that the communication was not available. The firing operation was not communicated or approved back through the division and it was not shared here on the ridge. There was another crew, a hand crew working in the area and some dozers who remained on their own tactical frequencies. The aircraft in the area couldn't reach anyone on the ground on air to ground for whatever reason, whether people didn't have the appropriate radio or they didn't have the radios on the appropriate channel, communications were really, really inconsistent here. Had the aircraft been able to communicate well with the people on the ground they might have been able to provide some warning as to what was coming. Had the joining resources, the crews and the dozers had been able to share with the engine crews here on the ridge that the fire was starting to heat up and become more intense below them. That may have changed the scenario. So communications was a huge issue. The other issue we found is that we had two portable radios. Our engine left Nevada with two portable programmable radios. They gave one up because one of the engines in Task Force didn't have a programmable radio. So Doug had one. When Doug was trying to rescue Steve he had to drop that radio to use both hands. That radio burned up. They had no portable radio when they were in the house. If the engine had not survived there would have been no way to call for help. They would have been up here stranded. Since then as an organization we do not send an engine out of our jurisdiction without a radio for every member of the crew on the team. Oftentimes there's valuable information that can be driven from history and in this particular case there was a fire fatality that occurred in 1956 about five miles from this location on the Inaha fire. Very similar conditions. Terrain was a little bit different. Fuel was a little bit different. But basically there are some correlations that can be looked at and so in some ways we've repeated history. We probably need to pay close attention to those scenarios when we have an active fire burning near a fatality site. We need to compare those similarities and make sure the people that are working those fires are aware of those types of situations because there may be some information there that could save a life. As we approach this fire season we hope the Cedar Fire will remind us all to review and practice our five communication responsibilities and to plan for and expect the unexpected and most extreme fire behavior. Dive deeper into your knowledge of fire behavior indicators and continuously compare your predicted fire behavior with the actual fire behavior.