SEATTLE - The U.S. Forest Service and the Washington State Department of Natural Resources have issued a joint report on what happened in the August 19, 2015, Twisp River Fire that killed three firefighters.
Tom Zbyszewski, 20, Andrew Zajac, 26 and Richard Wheeler, 31, were killed when their Forest Service brush truck ran off Woods Canyon Road and down a 40-foot embankment. A fourth firefighter, 25-year-old Daniel Lyon, was seriously burned and was just released on Wednesday after spending three months in Harborview Medical Center after being airlifted from the fire.
Called a "Learning Review," the report is a step in a longer process involving fire and fire management experts in preventing a similar tragedy.
The report clearly states that more lives could have been lost as firefighters found themselves trapped up the narrow, windy, dirt road within a fire that doubled in size in just 15 minutes. Smoke was said to be as "black as night," cutting visibility. The report says flames reached 60 feet in height. It was all complicated when the wind shifted. Other crews that survived in some cases tried to hide in buildings, and in one case had to share a fire shelter.
The report also speaks not only of confusion, but the rush to try and get out. Radio frequencies were jammed, multiple agencies had to form an "ad hoc" command structure to try and manage the rapidly changing fire.
