This August 5th will mark the 74th anniversary of the Mann Gulch Fire of 1949 – a wildfire that caused the deaths of 13 wildland firefighters and changed the emergency management sector forever. Although most of the victims’ suffering was short lived (Jansson 1949a), their legacies and sacrifice paved the way for achievements and pursuits of knowledge that continue to this day. They are idolized by all – and rightfully so. For those who survived, their pain – at least behind closed doors – persisted until their last breath. Their actions were and will continue to be greatly scrutinized, for better or worse.
Overview:
After the first reports of fire were transmitted by local lookouts at around 12:25 pm on August 5th, 1949, a Forest Service plane was dispatched to fly over the area and collect intel on the fire’s location, remoteness, size, and speed (U.S. Forest Service, 1949). Although smoking heavily, the blaze, located near the ridgetop between the Mann and Meriwether gulches in Montana’s Helena National Forest only measured a few acres in size (U.S. Forest Service, 1949). Upon learning of this information, the decision to send in smokejumpers was made.
Due to other fires in the region, only 16 of the requested 25 smokejumpers could be sent to the fire which was reached at 3:10 pm (U.S. Forest Service, 1949). Upon extensive examination of the jump site and attack strategy from the air by Earl Cooley and Foreman Wag Dodge, the go ahead was given to proceed with the operation; which saw 15 personnel and their equipment successfully dropped with only a single casualty – the radio – by 4:08 pm (U.S. Forest Service, 1949). Perhaps spurred on by the advancing winds of the now 60-acre fire, the gear landed hundreds of feet downhill from the crew, forcing them to hike down to retrieve it. Shortly after doing so, and unbeknownst to them at the time, small spot fires at the base of the gulch rapidly grew in size and cut off their escape route. Upon this revelation and as the blaze began chasing them up the rocky 76° incline, equipment was abandoned as they feverously raced towards the ridge.
When it became evident that this effort was for naught, Dodge, who was leading the charge, succeeded in setting an “escape” fire. Despite his pleas to do so (Rumsey, 1961; Maclean & Egan, 2017), no one else followed his strategy. Of the 15 men, only three would survive the ordeal (including Robert Sallee and Walter Rumsey, who successfully outran the fire over the ridge and found safety in near a rockslide, and Dodge himself).
An escape fire is a firefighting strategy used often as a last-ditch effort. It consists of burning a small swath of land ahead of the approaching main fire, which upon facing a rapidly approaching fire, eliminates its ability to consume the already burned fuel – thereby, at least in this case, forcing it to pass overhead as Dodge lay on the ground beneath it.
It is worth noting that much of the controversy surrounding the disaster lay with Dodge’s use of the escape fire, a tactic that was not taught at the time. Henry Thol Sr., in particular, took great issue with Dodge’s actions and partially blamed him for the death of his son Henry Thol Jr. in the disaster (Board of Review, 1949). Despite reassurance from his colleagues such as District Ranger Jansson that he acted appropriately and honorably (Jansson, 1949b) he was never truly the same. In a letter after Dodges death in 1955 his widow exclaimed that Dodge essentially “died that day” (Wilson, 1988).
Lessons in Psychological Secondary Drowning
Despite their miraculous escape and being entirely absolved of blame by the investigating commission (U.S. Forest Service, 1949) their actions would continue to be scrutinized – especially those of Wag Dodge (Maclean & Egan, 2017)– by the families of the victims, professionals and experts, academics, media journalists, authors and even movie directors. Despite surviving the ordeal with little physical harm, each became a victim of the event – at least mentally (Gilund, 2005; Wilson, 1988). It seems analogically similar to secondary drowning in this way. An individual can be removed from the active and publicly seen life-threatening environment (such as the beach) but still succumb to the hidden threats within (water in the lungs); with each inquiry or media story about the crisis pouring more into the remaining cavity. Unlike with secondary drowning however, complete removal of the inhibiting contents from the mental system is impossible. There will always be scars, which if not allowed time to heal, will remain open wounds susceptible to “infection.” With Dodge being forced to relive and defend his actions at every turn from people who sat in their ivory towers, those deep wounds were never given adequate time to heal.
Feeling understood by others is a critical element of the human psyche and if compromised can pose a significant mental hurdle to an individual’s daily life (Morelli, Torre & Eisenberger, 2014; Gaillard, Shattell & Thomas, 2009). This biological need is so ingrained in human beings that even a stranger’s temporary false perception can reduce the negative psychological effects felt by the victim (Kesebir & Oishi, 2008). While we are certainly more aware of mental health and its subsequent effect on survivors today than we were in 1949, the social environment in which we currently reside has also evolved. Today, in the digital and social media age, involved parties are easily targeted, criticized, and bombarded by others who do not understand – lest seek to understand – the contextualized factors and influences through which decisions were made and actions taken. Instead of experts and witnesses judging actions within an understood context of a time-deprived life-or-death crisis, the social fate of those involved is decided by millions of people not bound by rules of conduct, ethics, or professionalism. It is difficult to imagine the psychological torment the survivors and their families would have had to face if the Mann Gulch disaster occurred in today.
Lessons in Hindsight as a Tool, Not a Means to the End
Hindsight is a powerful tool to wield; especially when made accessible to an individual not physically or psychologically attached to the event in question. Although it is easy to criticize the actions of others in the past, we must also remember that we see differently now due in-part from the lessons learned from those very actions. It is upon the backs and corpses of others that EM research currently stands.
Despite being a darling of science literature, the concept of Nature versus Nurture is one that seems to be lacking in this case. It was only through reading and analyzing unscientific literature predominantly written by those with experience in wildland firefighting and smoke jumping (“Nurture”) that much of the needed insight and contextualized background of the “why’s” were made clear.
A Select Few Examples Include: Mann Gulch Remembered by NWCG, Remembering Mann Gulch by Marc Childress & The Thirteenth Fire by Dave Turner
Hindsight in EM research and academia can only go so far. When the focus turns away from understanding why actions were taken, to that of their end results, the industry’s ability to learn from the past is greatly limited.
Analogically speaking it is akin to the score of a sports game and the events that occur after the winner is declared. Being that there exists a clear and readily definable cause and effect it is relatively easy to analyze and study. But this is a shell. It is not where the real essence lies. How much can we reasonably learn about the sport’s innerworkings, the environment in which it occurs or the people on its frontlines when focus rests solely on the end results? Shouldn’t we go back and analyze the tape? In an effort to prevent or mitigate unsatisfactory outcomes, wouldn’t it be smart to understand why decisions and strategy were chosen over others in a specific time on a certain play against a unique opponent in order to meet personal, team, or organizational goals?
Although much more challenging to access, understand or study than the readily accessible score, contextual-based insights are invaluable. In EM how can we expect to prevent or mitigate unsatisfactory outcomes when much time and effort is spent studying symptoms and end results rather than the underlying “Nurtured” reasons from which they stem? Simply put, unless we are able to understand why decisions or actions were made/taken we are bound to repeat them.
Unfortunately, at least in the case with Mann Gulch, all of the primary witnesses are no longer with us. Despite this, it is evident that our sector can learn a great deal from the personal and experience-based knowledge that openly resides in these communities – whether they be first responders or even natural disaster victims. We likely just have to ask.
Lessons in Studying Contextualized Decision Making
Although virtual reality still has much to be desired in terms of invoking the same “presence” one would have while in the field, experiments of this nature have been used to examine and analyze decision-making processes for wildland firefighters (Nahavandi et al, 2019; Parker et al., 2017; Engelbrecht, Linderman & Hoerman, 2019) evacuees (Harris, Chakraborty & Srinivasan, 2023) and emergency managers alike (Maura Dos Santos & Son, 2022).
It could also, at least theoretically, be used to jump back into time – much like how full flight engineering simulations can recreate historic aviation incidents (O’Callaghan, 2021). Instead of relying upon contextually-detached hindsight, technological capabilities that better simulate holistic first-person experiences could be employed in an effort to study the “whys” of specific actions. Incorporating this type of simulation into the sphere of EM research may also subsequently provide insight into mitigating psychological impacts on disaster victims.
“Wag did some real fine things up there. He gave them an opportunity to live. If the guys had followed him, he would have been a hero. But they didn’t.”
~ Walter Rumsey (Marriam, 1998)
Let us remember all the good that came from the Mann Gulch Disaster:
Safer Firefighter Equipment Development and Innovation
Creation and Implementation of Fire Science within the Forest Service
Established an Emphasis on the Importance of Crew Training, Discipline and Unity
Promoted the Need for Active and Reliable Communication Methods for Frontline Personnel
Led to the Development of the Ten Standard Firefighting Orders
In Memorium:
Additional Reading:
An Analysis of Dodge’s Escape Fire on the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire in Terms of Survival Zone for Wildland Firefighters: https://wildfiretoday.com/documents/AnalysisDodgeEscapeFireon1949MannGulchFireSurvivalZone.pdf
Collection of Historical Photographs, Mann Gulch Fire: https://www.nwcg.gov/wfldp/toolbox/staff-ride/library/mann-gulch-fire/collection-historical-photographs
Staff Ride to the Mann Gulch Fire (Toolkit): https://www.nwcg.gov/wfldp/toolbox/staff-ride/library/mann-gulch-fire
The Collapse of Sensemaking in Organizations: The Mann Gulch Disaster: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2393339
Trimotor & Trail: Pioneer Smokejumpers (Book) by Earl Cooley
References:
Board of Review of Mann Gulch Fire, Helena National Forest (1949, September 6-8). [Testimony]. https://www.nwcg.gov/sites/default/files/wfldp/docs/sr-mg-board-of-review-testimony.pdf
Engelbrecht, H., Lindeman, R. W., & Hoermann, S. (2019). A swot analysis of the field of virtual reality for firefighter training. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 6. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2019.00101
Gaillard, L. M., Shattell, M. M., & Thomas, S. P. (2009). Mental health patients’ experiences of being misunderstood. Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, 15(3), 191–199. https://doi.org/10.1177/1078390309336932
Gidlund, C. (2005). Mann Gulch Survivor Corrects Errors. Smokejumper Magazine, 49, 3–4. https://dc.ewu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1048&context=smokejumper_mag
Harris, L. M., Chakraborty, S., & Srinivasan, A. R. (2023). Use of immersive virtual reality-based experiments to study tactical decision-making during emergency evacuation. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2302.10339
Jansson, R. (1949a, August 25). Personal Letter to Mr. & Mrs. Harrison. https://www.nwcg.gov/sites/default/files/wfldp/docs/sr-mg-jansson-to-harrison-letter.pdf
Jansson, R. (1949b, September 1). Personal Letter to Wag Dodge. https://www.nwcg.gov/sites/default/files/wfldp/docs/sr-mg-jansson-letter-to-dodge.pdf
Larcombe, B. (2021). Montana disasters: True Stories of Treasure State Tragedies and Triumphs. Far Country Press.
Lun, J., Kesebir, S., & Oishi, S. (2008). On feeling understood and feeling well: The role of interdependence. Journal of Research in Personality, 42(6), 1623–1628. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2008.06.009
Maclean, N., & Egan, T. (2017). Young men and fire (Twenty-fifth anniversary edition). The University of Chicago Press.
Maura Dos Santos, V., & Son, C. (2022). Virtual reality simulation for emergency management teams – a literature review. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 66(1), 1937–1941. https://doi.org/10.1177/1071181322661324
Merriam, G. (1988, April 17). The Legacy of Mann Gulch: The Blaze that Killed 13 Men Still Burns in State History. The Missoulian, 39, 45 & 46. https://www.newspapers.com/image/351661522/
Morelli, S. A., Torre, J. B., & Eisenberger, N. I. (2014). The neural bases of feeling understood and not understood. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9(12), 1890–1896. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nst191
Nahavandi, S., Wei, L., Mullins, J., Fielding, M., Deshpande, S., Watson, M., Korany, S., Nahavandi, D., Hettiarachchi, I., Najdovski, Z., Jones, R., Mullins, A., & Carter, A. (2019). Haptically-enabled vr-based immersive fire fighting training simulator. In K. Arai, R. Bhatia, & S. Kapoor (Eds.), Intelligent Computing (pp. 11–21). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22871-2_2
O’Callaghan. (2021). The Role of Flight Simulation in NTSB Accident Investigations. Office of Research and Engineering. National Transportation Safety Board. https://www.isasi.org/Documents/library/technical-papers/2021/The%20Role%20of%20Flight%20Simulation%20in%20NTSB%20Accident%20Investigations%20-%20O’Callaghan.pdf
Parker, R., Vitalis, A., Walker, R., Riley, D., & Pearce, H. G. (2017). Measuring wildland fire fighter performance with wearable technology. Applied Ergonomics, 59, 34–44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2016.08.018
Rothermel, R. C. (1993). Mann Gulch Fire: A Race That Couldn’t Be Won (General Technical Report INT-229; Intermountain Research Station). U.S. Forest Service. https://foresthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Mann_Gulch_Fire_A_Race_That_Could_Not_Be_Won_May_1993.pdf
Rumsey, W. (1961). Walter Rumsey’s Statement Twelve Years After Mann Gulch. National Smokejumpers Association. https://www.nwcg.gov/sites/default/files/wfldp/docs/sr-mg-rumseys-statement.pdf
U.S. Forest Service. (1949). Board of Review Report: Mann Gulch Fire. United States Forest Service. https://www.nwcg.gov/sites/default/files/wfldp/docs/sr-mg-report-of-board-of-review.pdf
Wilson, P. M. (1988, May 1). Widow Remembers Mann Gulch . The Missoulian, 10. https://www.newspapers.com/image/351677099/