SAFENET


SAFENET

Wildland Fire Safety & Health Reporting Network

SAFENET Event Information
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SAFENET ID:
20180220-0001        [Corrective Actions]
Event Start Date:
02/16/2018 1300
Event Stop Date:
 
Incident Name:
Butte Thin RX
Fire Number:
 
State:
California
Jurisdiction:
BLM
Local Unit:
Incident Type:
Prescribed/Fuels Treatment
Incident Activity:
Line
Stage of Incident:
Mop Up
Position Title:
 
Task:
site visit from overhead 
Management Level:
2
Resources Involved:
Overhead 
Contributing Factors
Contributing Factors:
Human Factors
Human Factors:
Decision Making, Leadership, Risk Assessment, Situational Awareness  
Other Factors:
 
Narrative
Describe in detail what happened including the concern or potential issue, the environment (weather, terrain, fire behavior, etc), and the resulting health issue.
Myself and a firefighter watched two overhead personnel walk down a fire line at least 100 yards and then walk through the burned area to get back to there vehicles on day 3 of a prescribed fire while fire crews were aggressively in mop up and patrol. The potential of the incident was getting burned/fire weakened tree strike. The concern was that the two overhead personnel were not wearing all the proper PPE (hardhats, fire shelters, or full nomex).The prescribed burn was in timber under story with oak leaf litter and pine needle cast with heavy fuels scattered about. Total acres for the units was 90. The weather was cool, terrain was flat on ridge top, fire area had burning stump holes, fire weakened trees, 100 and 1000 hour fuels still smolding. The objective for the day was for fire crews to achieve 25 feet mop up of cold black up to 50 foot. The line where the overhead walked, the crews were still working mop up from the line to 25 foot.
My concern was the burn area had fire weakened trees. The day before, it was reported on the radio that a couple of fire weakened trees had fallen to the ground and everybody needed to keep up situational awareness. Also, there were numerous stump holes still very hot and burning and the potential was high to step in one.
Immediate Action Taken
Reporting Individual : please describe actions you took to correct or mitigate the unsafe/unhealthful event.
The actions I took to correct the problem was that I drove down to where they came out from the fire to there vehicle and I talked to both overhead personnel about wearing full PPE while on the fire line and walking through the fire. I talked about trees falling on them (green or fire weakened) and how the burn has been successful so far with no injuries or escape and I didn't want to deal with a medical incident/injury at this point of the prescribed fire.


Agency Response

20180220-0001-CA001

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