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On July 6, 1994, 14 firefighters died in a wildfire on Storm King Mountain in western Colorado. Their deaths made the South Canyon Fire a landmark event in the annals of wildland firefighting, next to such major firefighting tragedies as the Big Blowup of 1910 and the Mann Gulch Fire of 1949.*
Within weeks after the fire, the Report of the South Canyon Fire Accident Investigation Team (USDA/USDI/USDC 1994) outlined many of the circumstances that led to disaster. More recently, John Maclean (1999) has described additional factors, such as resource use decisions in the days before the blowup.
This article summarizes a detailed study by the authors on the fire behavior associated with the South Canyon Fire (Butler et al. 1998). What fire-related factors contributed to the tragedy? And what lessons do they teach?
Topography
The Colorado River cuts through a series of north-south ridges on its way west through the Rocky
Mountains. At Glenwood Springs, the river bisects a ridge of shale and sandstone, forming a narrow canyon at the base of Storm King Mountain, at 8,700 feet (2,700 m) the highest peak in the area. The mountain rises about 3,000 feet (900 m) above the river's north bank. Broken spurs and steep ravines reach south from the peak to the river.
Main Ridge, the site of the South Canyon Fire, starts in a saddle south of the peak and runs southwest for about 3,700 feet (1,100 m) before ending at a knob overlooking the Colorado River. From the knob, the canyon walls fall steeply about 1,100 feet (330 m) to the river below.
Though adjacent to an interstate highway, Main Ridge is difficult to approach. No roads or trails lead up from the highway. The ridge is flanked on the east and west by deep, twisting ravines running north and south, called the East and West Drainages. The first firefighters reached the fire by hiking for hours up the East Drainage.
The fire burned mostly on the west flank of Main Ridge, so the firefighters built fireline down into the West Drainage (fig. 1). They traversed steep slopes of up to 55 percent, with treacherous footing in the crumbling shale. Side spurs and draws angling from Main Ridge down into the drainage...