See you on the other side
Written by: Curtis Heaton
““Burning to death on a mountainside is dying at least three times . . . First, considerably ahead of the fire, you reach the verge of death in your boots and your legs; next, as you fail, you sink back in the region of strange gases and red and blue darts where there is no oxygen and here you die in your lungs; then you sink in prayer into the main fire that consumes, and if you are a Catholic about all that remains of you is your cross.” ”
“We do it here!” shouted Dewain, the Prescott Hotshot Foreman. Dewain’s face was red and he was dripping sweat. He wasn’t fatigued but rather “feeling the jazz” as Dewain liked to say. I looked into his eyes, contemplating his words and then glanced over my shoulder. The fire was gaining on us. Not 200 yards behind me a 30 foot wall of flame was moving rapidly through the chaparral. It’s flaming front stretching across my field of view, steadily devouring everything in its path. This was bad. Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do. Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.
“We do it here and we do it together” he said.
His words landing somewhere between a question and an order.
A few seconds passed between us as I scanned the topography. The experts will tell you that I was experiencing a period of acute stress and my body – specifically my amygdala, was doing what it was designed to do – pumping out adrenaline and other cool hormones and stuff in response to the stress. This is commonly referred to as the “flight or fight response”. This response was developed in the human brain back in the days of giant cave bears and saber tooth tigers. The response has been refined over the millennia and is stored in each of our brains for moments such as this one. After spending the last 20 minutes attempting to outrun a wall of fire, the idea of stopping was not registering. “Flight” was winning the argument in my brain.
Fortunately, there was six years of firefighting experience on a hotshot crew also stored nearby in my prefrontal cortex. And the analytical part of my brain, the cerebral cortex, was telling my amygdala to chill out for a moment so it could think. I quickly calculated the distance and time between us and the fire. Based on the fire’s current rate of spread and the speed we had been able to travel, I estimated how much more country we could cover. I looked further to the east, our general direction of travel as we had attempted to outrun the fire, and spied a rocky bluff. The math said I might be able to make it. “A guy could survive on top of that I thought and the helicopter could pick us up...
Although the terrain grew steeper and rockier and the brush appeared even thicker, somewhere near that rock outcropping, a Jet Ranger helicopter – 2 Tango Kilo (2TK) was holding a hover, unable to get under the smoke column. The smoke column was only 50-100 feet above our heads and flowing on a current of convection like a blanket of angry gray fog. This was the same ship that had dropped us off 30 minutes earlier. While my prefrontal cortex was engaged in debate with my amygdala, Tommy, the pilot of 2TK was looking for a place where he could hover low enough in the smoke for us to grab on to his skids since the rocks and vegetation prevented a landing. He couldn't see us but he knew we were close as we had communicated our movement over the air to ground frequency; the only frequency with which we had contact with the outside world.
Dewain’s eyes met mine again and he seemed to read my thoughts or perhaps he had already ran the same calculations. The next words out of my mouth would decide my fate.
“Down here, I found something”! Brian yelled. The third member of our party was a second year crewmember named Brian. Brian had disappeared a moment earlier into the brush directly in front of Dewain and I as our brains were engaged in mental judo. Brain had stumbled into a pile of giant boulders stacked on top of each other. The area under these boulders was devoid of vegetation and almost cave like. What appeared to be a challenging obstacle (and what had created this momentary pause in our flight) was actually a natural fortification. “In here” he yelled again. Dewain and I quickly moved in behind Brian to see what had him all excited. Brian had inadvertently made the decision for all of us and saved our lives in the process. God bless the Irish!
Fight the way you train, train the way you fight
Training is a good thing. “Fight the way you train, train the way you fight” a good business model. It was here that our training took over. We began throwing our fusees and Sig bottles full of gas and oil away from us. No one had said the words “fire shelter” yet. It was classic denial but our actions spoke for us. I figured we had two to three minutes before the fire arrived. We moved mechanically finding the best place to deploy. We each had about 20 square feet to work with. Brian slightly below me. He and I almost touching. Dewain slightly higher and off to my right 10 feet away. I could no longer see the fire but I could hear it. It was getting much louder, growing more intense. Feeding itself.
What none of us knew is that the flame front we were running from was the least of our concerns. The real threat was further below us and exploding up the drainage we had just entered. The fire had made a classic pincer movement and developed a second head perfectly aligned with the very drainage we had assumed was our escape route. About the same time as our landing back at the LZ the “secure heel” of the fire had blown out, moving laterally into the main drainage and creating a second, independent head. It was racing unabated right to our location. To awkwardly borrow a military analogy, we had stumbled into the perfect ambush.
Reality set in quickly as I tore the plastic on my fire shelter. There was no longer any hesitation, no stigmas to worry about, this was survival. I remember saying “I will see you on the other side” to my partners as I fumbled with unfolding my shelter. I then attempted to roll into it (there was a large boulder above me which prevented the traditional stand and drop deployment). I became tangled in the bottom straps of the shelter. I grabbed my trusty Buck knife and cut the straps, misplacing my right glove in the process. As I pulled the shelter around me, my world went dark.
I heard one last radio transmission over my King radio from Dewain to Air Attack. An air tanker was inbound. Dewain was calling in a salvo drop directly on top of us. I thought this could be one hell of a fire story at the bar. I pictured a cold beer in hand, crowd gathered around and me saying “There we were, about to get burned over when suddenly...”
I seem to remember hearing the tanker when it came overhead roaring louder than the fire. “Here comes the rain” I thought. Nothing. Later I learned that although the drop was spot on, the convection from the fire lifted the drop and carried it several hundred yards away, slamming it into 2TK and covering the helicopter in pink goo. The pilot of the P2V air tanker Brad, risked his own life with that drop and all but crashing his aircraft in the process (I would love to hear his story). The same with Tommy and 2TK, the retardant could have knocked him out of the air he was so close. So here were two pilots flying through a convection column in the mountains, mere feet above the ground with little to no visibility. For those of you looking for heroes in this story, here they are – the two pilots who risked it all for three knucklehead hotshots.
So no retardant. No cool story for the bar. No last minute miracle. Just noise, flames and heat. Within seconds the roar became intense, like a fright train passing overhead. My darkened shelter became a laser light show as all of the pin pricks and abrasions on my shelter allowed beams of light to enter. For a brief moment I recognized the unique beauty this situation created. It was really cool.
Then it got hot, really really hot
The heat was unbearable. All oxygen seemed to instantly evaporate and breathing became impossible. My heart rate quickly accelerated as my body worked harder and harder to find oxygen. I had been saturated with sweat from power hiking in 90 degree temperatures. I was instantly dry. No air. “I need air!” I thought to myself. It reminded me of being smashed by a wave in the ocean and swimming hard for the surface. Your lungs about to explode. I used my bare fingers to claw through the thin layer of earth and then at the granite rock beneath me searching for a cool place. Pressing my face into the rock. My fingers bloody. Looking for anything that resembled oxygen. Anything that wouldn't burn.
I became lightheaded as the fire roared overhead. I yelled one last response to something intangible from either Brian or Dewain “Hanging!” was all I could get out before the noise and heat engulfed our little cave and each of us entered our own personal battle for survival. I felt my back burning and then I began to black out...
Six Hours Earlier
Lighting came early to western Arizona that year. It had been an exceptionally dry winter coming off of a couple of very wet years. Lots of grass in the low and mid elevations. The older decadent brush registered low live fuel moisture content from the onset of spring and had most likely decided to sit out the growing season. A rare perfect storm scenario. Once every ten or twenty years this scenario plays out in the Southwest. As a wildland firefighter, I saw it in 1994, the early 2000s and again in 2013. I lived through the first time. Since we rely so heavily on experience, it is difficult to register this elevated level of risk in these unique conditions until you see it first hand. The significance of this scenario would play out with devastating effect in July of 1994 in western Colorado and again in July of 2013 near Yarnell, Arizona. An area creepily similar to where I was currently fighting for my own life.
On the morning of June 1, 1994 the Prescott Hotshots were arriving on the scene of the Mackenzie Fire located in the Hualapai Mountains of western Arizona to fight yet another fire on BLM land in the middle of nowhere (we had just wrapped up a fire the night before – the third fire of the season for us). Had we addressed risk back then the way we do now, the Mackenzie Fire may never have been staffed. The only thing of “value” was the Wilderness. A Wilderness of decadent brush and supposedly some desert tortoise. I never saw any tortoises. I would have shared my shelter with them if I had though. I imagine they were down in the lower desert and preferred not to climb mountains. But, I am not a biologist and protecting them was one of the incident objectives. Silly. I could write an essay on stupid objectives involving fire and endangered species...perhaps I will.
Apologies for that, let’s get back to the story...
The Pleasant Valley Hotshots (now the Mesa Hotshots) had arrived on the Mackenzie Fire earlier. The night before I think and hiked in. They established an anchor point on the heel. I never actually saw or communicated with any of them that day. The fire was a hundred or so acres when we arrived. The Superintendent of the Prescott Hotshots, was asked to take over the fire as ICT3. Dewain, the crew Foreman (we call them Captains today) took the crew and I, as senior Squad Boss assumed the number two role. Tony and Dewain had recconned the fire and located an LZ in the black about three quarters up the right flank of the fire. Dewain plus one Helitack then flew up to the LZ in an old Bell 47 (think the TV show M.A.S.H.). Our assignment was to shuttle into the LZ. Split the crew with half moving down toward PV and the other half focused on securing the head before the heat of the day.
Standard tactics. One foot in the black. Anchor and flank with support from air tankers. Air Attack was working the opposite flank with the tankers until we moved into place. The retardant was holding. By 1200 the fire was looking good. Minimal activity. No major wind was forecasted with temperatures in the 90s and single digit RH. Just another day fighting fire in Arizona. We would be around it by dark by simply hotspotting and cold trailing the edge.
The Prescott Crew was at “Helibase”. In quotations because it was merely a dead end road at a mining site with a single Bell 47. The Bell 47 and a pickup Helitack Crew had been out tagging Desert Bighorn Sheep in the area and responded to the fire. Shortly after our arrival, the Phoenix BLM Helitack crew had arrived and began to organize the operation which is why I ended up in the Jet Ranger (2TK) and not the Bell 47. I’ll skip the background on helicopters and crew shuttles and helibase stuff. These things rarely go as planned, particularly during a transition. The Helitack folks were professionals and lets just say it took time to safely sort out the aircraft, frequencies, do the load calculations, etc. The significance is that Brian and I sat in the newly arrived 2TK at the helibase for what seemed like an eternity before finally lifting off to fly to Dewain’s location on the fire. This was as much to do with the air tankers dropping on the fire as anything. I never found out for sure but the kind of stuff that happens on most fires.
As we approached the fire in T2K, I was unable to get a view of the main fire, specifically the right flank where we were to land. Heading east from helibase, we intentionally swung wide on the left flank to avoid the air tankers which in turn, forced us to fly below the crest of the ridge. The combination of terrain and smoke blocked my view of the main fire. We then crested the ridge, turning back to southwest flying through the smoke and descending along the right flank to our LZ. We had basically flew a big circular pattern around the head of the fire. If that pattern had been around the heel, well I’d have nothing to write about.
I was in the front seat with a headset and I remember talking with Tommy, the pilot, as we descended through the column. The ship was bounced around from turbulence and it was becoming obvious the fire was much more active then when we had loaded the aircraft. After one noteworthy bump, he looked at me and smiled (Tommy always seemed to be smiling) and said “Looks like the fire is really picking up”. I said “Keeps things interesting” or some similar false bravado statement as my spidey sense was telling me that something wasn’t right. This was verified as I realized we were about to land and I saw Dewain and the Helitack guy standing in a small clearing out in the middle of the green. The fire was a quarter mile away. “WTF, why are we landing here” I wondered to myself?
I knew something was wrong but……
There comes a point in any good adventure story where the storyteller says “I knew something was wrong but...” Well, this is that point. The thing is, I could have stopped it all right there. All I had to do was not get off the helicopter. Switch over to air to ground and tell Dewain and the Helitack guy to get in though we would have been overloaded on weight. I looked out of the aircraft at Dewain who was intently peering back at the fire and talking to the Helitack guy. It just didn’t feel right...
The door opened and I stepped off the ship, failing to break the error chain and sealing my fate. I was along for the ride from this point forward.
The Helitack guy, who I later determined to be the most intelligent person I encountered that day could not get on-board the helicopter fast enough. The rationale that Dewain later shared with me was 2TK couldn’t carry all of us due to weight so Dewain never considered evacuating the spot. Helitack (who actually belonged to the Bell 47 crew) wanted out of there. Get him out, us in and get to fighting fire. If things went south, we should have enough allowable payload for the three hotshots to get on the next load.
As the helicopter lifted off. Dewain, Brian and myself were all alone. Dewain was talking to Air Attack and I went to the edge of the clearing where I could look down and see the fire boiling up. All I could really see was the smoke but it was obvious this was an active part of the fire. I yelled at Dewain “What the fuck is going on”? More confused than angry. He replied “Where the fuck have you been?” also more confused than angry.
Now, what I failed to mention is that from the time Dewain had flown up to the fire to the time Brian and I landed an hour had elapsed. Remember the helicopter/helibase/air show comment I made earlier? Dewain quickly explained the Bell 47 pilot wouldn’t land in the black. He had deviated from the original plan and decided to get dropped off here, wait for Brian and I to land with a chainsaw and then hike to edge of the fire and build a helispot adjacent to the black. The fire was just creeping around at that time. Okay, good plan. Well, like all good plans, it had a shelf life. The plan’s shelf life was about 20 minutes and we had eaten up an hour.
All that aside, the situation was not dire. We may have been in the middle of the green with a wildfire below us and lacking any kind of plan but we had tools and we had talent. I grabbed a fussee from Brian’s pack and starred lighting. My plan was simple; burn a black ring around our green LZ. Turn it into a safety zone and wait for the fire to reach us. There was no wind so I was confident we could control our little burnout. Dewain was having second thoughts by now and radioed T2K to drop off Helitack at helibase and then return for us if we were unable to secure this location.
And then the wind arrived
Like all good stories, after the “I knew something was wrong...” moment, next comes the “Oh shit” moment. Brian and I had invested a few minutes into our burnout when we all looked up and said “Oh Shit”. The main fire was taking off. It was now early afternoon and the conditions had aligned in favor of the fire. The head, above us and to the north of our location took off racing up the hill. Although it was impressive, we were on the flank so this was no threat to us but it became clear this thing was going to outrun any suppression efforts we could bring to bare. About that time, the flank of the fire a quarter mile away and directly below us decided to join in on the fun and also stood up. And then the wind arrived.
Enter the next decision point – stay at the LZ and turn our doughnut of black into a safety zone or start hiking? Dewain said “We have an escape route. Its down this drainage to the east straight to the heel of the fire”. Did I mention none of us had a map? Did I mention I couldn’t see the fire due to our approach pattern, terrain and smoke? I trusted Dewain however and could read the land well enough to understand what he meant. I was cool with it. This movement would have us travel parallel to the fire for a few hundred yards and then drop into a drainage moving downhill and away from the fire’s direction of spread. The PV Hotshots had secured the bottom (no radio contact by the way) so we just had to avoid the active flank and the head which was moving away from us anyway.
We grabbed most everything we brought us which included; chainsaw, two bundles of tools, several backpack pumps, fuel and our personal packs. We were loaded down but were not about to leave anything behind other than the piss pumps. We moved out and within a few minutes I looked back as the flank of the fire overran the LZ. Our little burnout worked as we would find out later. The piss pumps survived!
I have always been a fitness guy. Not as much back then as I am now. I was 27 in June of 1994 so being a badass came naturally. Now, comfortably into my 50s, I have to work really hard to come close to that level of fitness. In 1994 I had been a Hotshot for six years and Dewain was a former Navy SEAL who’s PT program bordered on insane (stuff that gets you fired today). My point, as a Prescott Hotshot – I was in great shape. I think both Brian and Dewain had beaten me in our last six mile run a few days prior so lets say we were all in exceptional physical condition.
Our “hike” quickly turned into a race. The fire was increasing in intensity by magnitudes. Again, what we didn’t know and could not see is that the entire perimeter of the fire was blowing out. There was no secure heel. All of the retardant had been compromised and the part of the fire formally known as the heel was flanking right into the very canyon we thought of as an escape route. This would become a new “head” for the fire with perfect wind and terrain alignment directly below us three amigos.
At some point we dropped the bundles of tools to gain speed as we realized we were starting to lose the race. I held on to the chainsaw as long as I could for two reasons. One; it may be needed to cut an LZ and two; it was brand new. Yep, it was on its very first fire. I would never hear the end of it if I left it behind. Budgets were tight back then. A brand new Stihl 044 was the state of the art, total badass, hotshot gear. Very soon however, common sense prevailed. As we crossed a sand wash I sat it down and made a mental note of its location hoping we could come back and find it intact. (Someone found it later and it had burned to a crisp. Its burnt-out carcass decorating the saw shop for years to come).
We were now moving with speed and focus. It was rough going though. Climbing over boulders, busting through brush. I would estimate our speed at four miles per hour. I remember climbing over these big ass boulders and slipping. Scraping knees, Stumbling. Brush tugging at my old school Nomex jeans. At one point, I slipped on a particularly large boulder and Dewain grabbed me and pulled me up with one hand. It was almost super human. Adrenaline is really an amazing drug. Someone should bottle it.
The fire was closing the gap
The fire was closing the gap however. After 15 minutes of this we ended up at the head of the drainage, our so called escape route, and the luckiest Irishman on the planet and my friend for life Brian, stumbled upon his pile of boulders.
I am not a good enough writer to share what it was like inside the shelter. I could type up several pages. I should do that but once I put it on paper it just comes up short. It is also a very personal experience to accept death. I may not know you, the reader, and that makes it difficult. Buy me a beer sometime and I will tell you the rest of the story. Let’s just say there is a difference between accepting you are going to die and giving up. None of us ever gave up but we expected to die. It was that close. Giving up would have been easier than staying alive. I stayed alive for my brothers. I remember thinking they are going to need me if we get through this. I cannot speak for them but it’s safe to say they felt the same way.
Time does not register under a fire shelter
Seconds are hours and minutes flash by an in instant. after the fire passed over us, I was the first one to stick my head out. I had my camera in my shirt pocket and it somehow survived the heat (most of our gear was damaged or destroyed). I remember being high as a kite, apparently from CO poisoning. I started snapping pictures.
I captured Dewain coming out of his shelter and eventually Brian. Brian was funny when I said it was safe to come out he said “No, I am good here. I am not coming out”. He then said ”I got an idea. They should put SCBAs in these things. We could get rich”. I laughed and black snot shot out of my nose, covering my face. Dewain was having trouble talking and busy blowing black gunk all over the place so I checked my radio which also survived with me inside the shelter. Those old Bendix-Kings were indestructible. I dialed up Air Attack who had been circling for some time unable to see us due to our little “cave” and all of the smoke. Its safe to say we had been presumed dead and word had quickly spread of our untimely demise. I told Air Attack we were all okay and we were “Breaking out the Copenhagen”. He repeated those exact words over the radio knowing the rest of the crew at Helibase couldn’t hear us but they could hear him. Apparently there was great rejoicing!
The long walk back to the LZ was painful. We had to lean on each other and each step took immense effort. Our lungs felt like they were full of concrete. Our shit was all burned up and our faces were crinkled up like little old men. Saying we were dehydrated was an understatement. Generally speaking, we were doing pretty good though as the investigation team and the few firefighters that eventually made it to our deployment site said no one should have survived. Tommy was waiting for us in 2TK. He never left us apparently. I crawled into his ship and sat on a retardant covered seat. I could barely see out of the window as it was covered in dried pink goo. How do you get aerially delivered retardant inside an airborne helicopter? If I didn’t have pictures to prove it I wouldn’t believe it. Like I said, that’s hero shit.
Tony and those unanmed dispatchers out there did an amazing job getting Life Flight and Advanced Life Support to the middle of nowhere, which probably saved our lives as we had a flight nurse shoving IVs and oxygen into us when we arrived back at helibase.
“You should be dead”
Later at the Kingman Hospital, the ER doctor said we should be dead solely based on our Carbon Monoxide levels. I remember him saying those exact words “You should be dead”. That was his professional medical evaluation. Ok. Great. Thanks dude but I really didn’t care, I was sucking up IVs and O2 like it was a free happy hour. My bros were okay. Life was good. But but damn did I stink!
Six Weeks Later
Billy’s Western Bar was the unofficial watering hole of the Prescott Hotshots. A number of empty pitchers cluttered the bar on July 14th as we all watched the South Canyon tragedy play out on national television. I don’t remember who it was sitting next to me but I told one of my fellow hotshots “I know what their last moments felt like”. It wasn’t meant to be a tough guy statement. It was me dealing with my own post-traumatic stress that lingered and would continue to linger for the rest of my life. I wondered why I lived and they did not. I could share with them the first two levels of death that Maclean describes; physical exhaustion and the slipping into the world of red and blue darts. I could feel their last breaths, their fears. The noise, the heat...I could share that much with them but fortunately for me, that’s where it ends.
I relived it again in the fall of 2013 as I followed in the footsteps of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. Walking through the saddle that led to deployment zone. Looking down at the markers where the 19 made their last stand. The ranch house/safety zone a few minutes further. Again, I am there with them as their world begins to slip away...The difference between me and them? I really don’t know. I don’t think firefighters wake up and ask themselves how can I screw up today? I don’t feel a need to punish people who simply fill a resource order and suddenly find themselves in a shit tsunami. Sometimes you just have a bad day and a bad day in the fire business, well, it can be fatal. We should honor the fallen by learning, not judging. Judgment is for the weak. Learning is leading.
Paying It Forward
I have tried to pay it forward. Without that experience in 1994 would I have worked tirelessly to make our community stronger; to focus on leadership and risk and to eventually rise to the highest qualification levels as Ops and IC and ending my career as a Regional Fire Director? Probably not. Ultimately, it is not the good days that define us. Its the bad days. And more importantly, who we become as a result of those bad days.
Written By: Curtis Heaton
