The other big thing that Shirley talked about was The Dude Fire. This fire happened in the 90s in Arizona. 6 inmates sent to fight the fire died. This was due to a few entirely preventable reasons. First of all, they should have known better than to go down into the fire due to the terrain. The fire happened in a rim and a cannon which trapped the fire. It also made it so that when the smoke fell the winds ripped through the canyon with nowhere to disperse to. Another thing was terrible communication. There were safe zones located close to the inmates, but none of them knew about them. And lastly lack of information. The inmate was not told all of the safety rules before leading to death, and they also would not drop their 50ibs packs because they were scared they would have to pay for the gear if they lost it. 

I have a personal connection to this presentation as I have a house in Colorado that was almost buried down last year due to a forest fire. Our trash can melted due to the heat, but luckily everyone was ok, and no one died. Another connection is that my dad worked as a rager for the forest fire service. He worked from ‘90 to ‘97, which coincides with The Dude Fire. But when I asked my dad about it, he said that he worked on a different fire that was somewhat similar, called the Storm King Fire. In this fire 13 people died, it was in Glenwood springs CO and my dad was assigned to this fire. Luckily he was assigned to the outskirts and was taken off as soon as they realized how dangerous it was. He worked mostly as a part of the Hand crew but occasionally got work on the Helitack crew. 

My dad (in yellow) and my aunt (in the smokey the bear costume) giving a fire safety lecture