Whipped Cream Difficulties

There’s an interesting article (tied to the Arizona tragedy) in today’s LAT, about the problems of investigating these incidents.

Some of them are probably obvious: these things generally happen in remote areas, and fire destroys a lot of evidence. But the main thrust of the LAT article is that a deep distrust has developed between firefighters and investigators since 2001. That year, four firefighters died in the Thirty Mile fire. The Forest Service did an investigation, and determined that there were a lot of issues with the way the fire was fought; from my reading, some of those issues were just bad luck and equipment failures, but there were also some procedural issues:

Standard safety procedures were violated. Risks were not appropriately assessed. Rest rules were disregarded.

What happened next is that one of the crew bosses was charged with manslaughter, based on that report. (The boss pled guilty to “making false statements” and served 90 days on work release.)

When federal investigators later showed up in California to look into the 2006 Esperanza fire, near Cabazon, firefighters refused to talk to investigators without union officials present, and some sought advice of lawyers.
Firefighters across the country began seeking legal counsel instead of participating in investigations into fatalities, according to congressional testimony in 2007 from Mark Rey, then an undersecretary of the Department of Agriculture who oversaw the Forest Service.
“Many of our firefighters do not want to speak freely,” he said at the time. They were also opting not to take supervisory jobs for fear of being held liable, he said.
Chockie is not surprised. “When I saw what followed after our report, I can understand why people might be much more hesitant or cautious now,” he said. “What they told us came back to them in unexpected ways.”

Safety procedures exist for reasons. And it is hard to say that people shouldn’t be held accountable. On the other hand, there’s also a very strong “do whatever it takes to fight the fire” attitude among firefighters, even if that means sometimes disregarding rest and safety rules. (And what are you going to do if it is rest time, there’s no relief, and the fire is still burning out of control? “Sorry, can’t fight that fire. On my coffee break.”) The other thing to realize is that wildfires are very volatile and chaotic situations; things can change literally in seconds. Is it fair or right to pass judgements in hindsight on the people who were there on the ground fighting the fire?

Obit watch: noted computer scientist and inventor of the mouse, Douglas Engelbart. LAT. NYT.

You, too, can have a Tony award. If you’re a “major investor” in a Tony-winning production. And you have $2,500.