‘We had 3 minutes to save their lives’
By Amy B Wang, Arizona Republic
The command that blared from the radio was one Gary Dahlen had never heard before, not in all his years piloting helicopters over wildfires.
All available helicopters prepare for an emergency launch.
He hardly knew what to make of it. “I was thinking maybe structures were threatened,” Dahlen said later.
He was waiting at a helicopter base in Placerville.
Just uphill, where the American River’s south fork cuts a knife-sharp slash through the forest, the King Fire had been exploding up the canyon walls and beyond since Sept. 13. Now, two days later, the airborne and ground attack on the fire was under way.
Dahlen had been out doing “bucket work” all morning, picking up water in the bucket that dangled from his yellow Bell 205, dropping it onto the flames in the forest below. At midday, he returned to the base to refuel and await orders. Then he heard the unusual radio call.
He quickly climbed into his flight suit, then into his seat.
As the helicopter’s turbo engine whined to life,someone from the fire command staff came sprinting toward the aircraft, reached in and punched latitude-and-longitude coordinates into Dahlen’s GPS.
That was when he learned the emergency: It was a shelter deployment.
A crew on the ground, somewhere in the steep wilderness beyond the base, was stuck in front of the fire. Deployment meant the crew had unpacked their fire shelters, blankets of reflective foil and insulation, and prepared to climb inside them.
For a firefighter, deployment is a last resort. Some firefighters inside shelters survive, as the flames roll past them. Some do not. In 2013, the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona overtook 19 firefighters, members of the Prescott-based Granite Mountain Hotshots. Realizing they were trapped, the firefighters deployed their shelters. None survived.
In the cockpit of his helicopter, Dahlen looked at the coordinates on his GPS. The long line for his water bucket was still shackled to the airframe. But the trapped crew was 10 miles away. He lifted the Bell into smoke-dulled afternoon light and headed toward the flames.
WOW!! This is an amazing story! If you read the whole thing you may find your eyes tearing up.
Thank you Mr. Dahlen and thank you to everyone who fought and is still fighting the King Fire.
Spouse – 4-mer-usmc
What a great story!
I have two sons in the fire service. One son was on the King Fire, the other wasn’t. One son tells me his sources tell him this account of the shelter deployment is spot on and doesn’t embellish in any way.
Brings to mind two excellent books about similar true events but each with tragic outcomes.
Young Men and Fire, written by Norman Maclean (A River Runs Thorught It) and published in 1993 is about the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire where 14 firefighters died. Maclean attempts a forensic investigation into the events surrounding the fire, including interviews and visits to the site with survivors.
Fire on the Mountain, written by Norman’s son, John Norman Maclean, and published in 1999 takes on the South Canyon Fire on Storm King Mountain in 1994 which took the lives of 14 firefighters in very similar conditions.
At the beginning of every wildland firefighting season I tell them, “there ain’t no tree worth dieing for, be smart and be safe.”
Having been a wildland firefighter with the USFS for about 20 years, I, too, can attest to the amazing feats of dedication and willingness by firefighters to do their job. I was very lucky and was never in a bad situation like the firefighters on the King fire experienced. I do know several people who have lost their lives in the line of their duty on fires. Its never worth loosing a life but try to stop these heroes….It cant be done. Thank you to every single person who is willing to risk their life to save others and their belongings. And although there is no tree worth loosing your life over, there are certainly trees worth saving.
Great story, I hope they make a movie out of it.