SAFENET


SAFENET

Wildland Fire Safety & Health Reporting Network

SAFENET Event Information
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SAFENET ID:
20180912-0001
Event Start Date:
09/09/2018 2100
Event Stop Date:
 
Incident Name:
Saddle
Fire Number:
221 DBC 
State:
Washington
Jurisdiction:
State
Local Unit:
Incident Type:
Wildland
Incident Activity:
Transport to/from
Stage of Incident:
Mop Up
Position Title:
Firefighters 
Task:
travel to and from fireline 
Management Level:
4
Resources Involved:
firefighters 
Contributing Factors
Contributing Factors:
Environmental, Human Factors
Human Factors:
Decision Making, 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.
The event that took place happened after finishing dinner on the second working day for the fire. We were traveling from dinner back to the hotel. The restaurant that we eat at is located on a one way street which we had traveled to reach the fire line the previous day as well as the day of the incident. I believe that this was pretty well known the road is a one way street since we had driven down the road numerous times as well as traveling the road to arrive at dinner. The road is divided by a median that has frequent breaks for turning around to go the direction you want to travel. He asked the passenger before they pulled out onto the road if he was clear to turn. The passenger responded yes thinking that the driver was wondering if there was a curb or ditch on the passenger side of the vehicle. The individual driving a state assigned vehicle then pulled out of the parking lot and took a hard left turn which put them traveling the wrong direction on the one way street. There was a vehicle traveling in the correct direction down the street when this took place. The driver did manage to stay mostly onto the shoulder with a small amount of the vehicle being in the lane. This is a two lane road and the vehicle traveling in the correct direction was in the far lane from the shoulder. This did happen when it was dark outside which could have contributed to the driver not seeing the median. I believe that the driver had plenty of rest leading into this incident because the two days we worked this fire we were getting lots of breaks and had an easy assignment. The concern/potential issue with this incident is that it could have easily resulted into a head on collision with the potential for serious injuries. The safety issue I see after watching this incident is when getting thrown onto a engine or hand crew where you are meeting up with other people who you may or may not know and know how many fires they have been on. Then you get into a vehicle with them not knowing how tired someone is as well as any previous driving history the person has. This not only could be putting themselves at risk but the passengers as well.
Immediate Action Taken
Reporting Individual : please describe actions you took to correct or mitigate the unsafe/unhealthful event.
When we arrived back at the hotel there was a discussion with the driver of the vehicle where the question was asked about being able to see and drive at night with the answer being yes I can see fine at night. The discussion with the individual will hopefully mitigate this from happening again in the future there was not a whole lot to mitigate during the incident itself aside from what the driver did after making the decision to turn the wrong way down a one way road.


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