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. |