What happened during the Twisp wildfire tragedy

Three months after the Twisp River Fire in August killed three firefighters and severely injured firefighter Daniel Lyon, Jr., the US Forest Service has released a report with more information about what happened.

The report lays finally provides dramatic insight into the incident, including a description of “three-to-four foot flame lengths.”

The report states one firefighter with nine years of experience said, “I have never seen fire move this fast.”

The report describes how one firefighter, presumably Daniel Lyon, Jr., got out of his vehicle after it fell down an embankment and “was immediately engulfed in flames. He went through the flames and made his way to the road.”

The three other firefighters in Lyon’s vehicle did not leave the vehicle after it crashed. They are the three whose lives were not spared.

The report also reveals that their vehicle, Engine 642, instead of driving down a road to their “safety zone,” first drove in a direction toward danger.

They turned around but the road was covered in smoke. The report says “the engine jolted and dropped down as if a tire had popped. They kept driving downhill, but they had zero visibility, and the engine went off the road.”

The report doesn’t say that communication was a problem but it’s easy to make that conclusion.

It lays out events but does not give analysis on what could be done better or what people or agencies could be to blame for mistakes, what the Forest Service calls “sense-making.” Another report is due out in the spring which will tackle those issues.

This “Learning Review Status Report” does include a list of questions “to initiate dialogue.” Things like, “How do we fight fires differently…?” and “Should we as an organization and as a nation reconsider our objectives, strategies, and tactics in the wildland-urban interface?”

Shoni Pilip-Florea with the US Forest Service says the fact that these questions are included reveals that the Forest Service wants to discuss potential big changes but she says it’s important not to rush.

“Really we owe it to the families and the firefighters who were fallen themselves to learn as much as we can from the situation and grow and evolve especially with climate change and increased drought,” she said. “Fire is the new normal we’re living with.”

Pilip-Florea says the US Forest Service used to spend only about 16 percent of its budget on fighting wildfires – that is half of its current budget. She says wildfire season is now 70 days longer than it used to be.