1966 11/01 CA 12-Fatality Loop

 

 

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Incident Name:  Loop Fire, Angeles National Forest Date: 11/1/66Personnel:  12 lives lostAge: Agency/Organization: US Forest ServicePosition: El Cariso Hotshots

Summary:

Kenneth Barnhill, 19 Raymond Chee, 23 Frederick Danner, 18 (died sometime after 11/24) John P Figlo, 18 Joel A Hill, 19 Daniel J Moore, 21 James A Moreland, 22 Carl J Shilcutt, 26 (died 11/6) John D Verdugo, 19 William J Waller, 21

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1966 11/01 CA 12-Fatality Loop

Michael R. White, 20 Stephen White, 18

On November 1, 1966, the El Cariso Hotshots, a U.S. Forest Service Interregional WildlandFirefighting Crew, was trapped by flames as they worked on a steep hillside in Pacioma Canyonon the Angeles National Forest. An unanticipated upslope wind came up in afternoon and a spotfire was fanned and funnled up the steep canyon. The crew was cutting handline downhill andpart of the crew was unable to reach safety in the few seconds they had. Ten members of thecrew died on the Loop Fire that day. Another two members died from burn injuries in thefollowing days. Most of the 19 El Cariso crew members who survived were critically burned andremained hospitalized for some time. The Downhill Indirect Checklist, improved firefightingequipment and better fire behavior training resulted, in part, from lives lost on this fire.

(Four US Marines were also killed on a nearby Camp Pendleton fire on the same day.)

El Cariso Hotshot Crews 1 and 2 in October, 1966; crew photos with identification complimentsof the El Cariso Hotshot crew website.

 

 

Crew 1, October 1966Left to Right, Back:  Joel Hill, Steve White, Jay Shilcutt, Steve Bowman, John Verdugo, BobChounardMiddle: Dan Moore, Rodney Seewald, Bill Waller, Andy Silkwood, Jim Reichard, Jim MoorelandFront: Ed Cosgrove, Jim Brown, John MooreFrom Crew 1:  Joel Hill, Steve White, John Verdugo, Dan Moore, Bill Waller and Jim Moorelandall died from burns they received on the Loop Fire of November 1, 1966.

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1966 11/01 CA 12-Fatality Loop

 

 

Crew 2, October, 1966, photo compliments of Rodney Seewald.Left to right, Back: Glen Spady, Pat Chase, Pete Achberger, Fred Danner, John Figlo, JoeSmalls, Mike WhiteMiddle: Jerry Smith, Joe Beaty, Ken Barnhill, Frank Keesling, Tom RotherFront: Richard Leak, Raymond CheeFrom Crew 2:  John Figlo, Mike White, Ken Barnhill, and Raymond Chee, died from burnsreceived on the Loop Fire of November 1, 1966. Carl Shilcutt and Fred Danner died in thehospital at a later time.

 

Blowup

Maps

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1966 11/01 CA 12-Fatality Loop

Accident Location

{mosmap lat='34.331477'|lon='-118.402541'|marker='0'|text='Accident Location'}

Map of final control line from the Accident Report

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Reports, Documentation, Lessons Learned

- Forest Service: Loop Fire Investigation Report (7224 K pdf) - Photo of mountainside with handline location (from report):

 

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1966 11/01 CA 12-Fatality Loop

  - Historical Lessons Learned - Angeles National Forest: Loop Training Exercise, 1967(9,212 K pdf, very large) - From NWCG Leadership Committee: Loop Fire Staff Ride - Doug Campbell, was the former supe of the El Cariso Hotshots and Gordon -- theircapable leader at the time of the burnover -- was and is his good friend and colleague. Dougalways said "If Gordon could be caught unaware, anyone could." What happened to Gordonand the El Cariso crew caused Doug to seek a better method both to predict fire behavior basedon old wisdom of hotshot supes and to communicate when and where fire behavior will change.CPS, the Campbell Prediction System -- or the Fire Signature Prediction Method -- was born.Trainers and trainees carry on using the method. Today there's a new generation of advocateswith new technology: Bruce Schubert, working with Doug and Will, is computer modeling theprediction process using a combination of BEHAVE and Doug's CPS.  

  - Personal Account of Rich Leak , an El Cariso Hotshot -- Loop Fire survivor. - Fire weather and fire behavior in the 1966 Loop Fire by C. M. Countryman, M. A. Fosberg, R. C. Rothermel and M. J. Schroeder, Fire Technology Vol 4, No 2, p. 126-141, 1968 - Video of 3-D simulated progression of the fire, locations of the crew and a fine interviewpiece by Gordon Knight, remembering what he saw and heard that day. This was used in the2010 Fireline Safety Refresher Training at NAFRI .                                                        - Fred Danner's story of the Loop Fire: Letter dictated to his mom who wrote it in shorthand and later transcribed it.

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1966 11/01 CA 12-Fatality Loop

- More from Freddie's mom Connie and his brother Jesse on Freddie's last days in thehospital - Loop Fire Survivor Gerald Smith LLC YouTube, published March 4, 2013. Sharing hisstory near the fatality site at the Loop Fire Staff Ride in 2012. - Loop (Nov 1, 1966) and Glen Allen (Aug 20, 1993) Fires Fatality Case Study LLCYouTube, published April 20, 2012 Return to top

Wildlandfire.com Links: - HOTLIST: The Loop Fire 1966 - They Said It: Search on Loop Fire, for example 3/4/2004 and scroll up and down, also 3/13/2010 Return to top

Media Articles and Reports. - Newspaper Front Page Nov 2, 1966 (1548 K pdf) - Newspaper Front Page Nov 3, 1966 (353 K pdf) - Newspaper Front Page Dec 22, 1966 (374 K pdf) - Newspaper Front Page Jan 11, 1967 (353 K pdf) - Loss and Rebirth in a '66 Fire: Twelve men died fighting the Loop blaze, but their deathsinspired new safety protocols. The survivors have struggled to build new lives. 11/4/2006 | Online Article MOST were college students and adventure seekers, young men who spent the summer of1966 choking off forest fires across the West, cutting trees and brush for days on end for about$2 an hour. One day that fall, the crew was dispatched to a narrow ravine near Sylmar to help contain ablaze in the Angeles National Forest. This was the 18th fire of the season for the 31-member El Cariso Hotshots. It looked like amop-up operation, removing what little fuel remained in the burnt-over chute. Gordon King, the crew's leader, told his men to travel light, to grab tools but leave their portablefire shelters in the truck. Their $5 government-issue fire-retardant shirts were useless afterrepeated washings had leached out the protective coating. Most of the men didn't put on gloves,and they rolled up their sleeves in the afternoon heat. The 32-year-old King was a no-nonsense commander who led by example, outworkedeveryone and didn't say much because he didn't have to. He was a student of fire, attuned to the way the fluctuating forces of sun, slope, smoke, windand heat determined its course. King believed he could predict what a fire would do. As he led his men into the abyss, they believed it too. A faulty power line near Pacoima Dam sparked the fire before dawn. Fueled by 60 mph SantaAna winds, the blaze blackened 2,000 acres around Loop Canyon and filled the northern SanFernando Valley with thick plumes of smoke. When the El Cariso Hotshots entered a rocky ravine east of the canyon about 3 p.m., the firewas largely contained. At 3:35 p.m., an unexpected shift in wind caused a small spot fire to develop below the crew.Within seconds, super-heated gas had raced up the 2,200-foot canyon and exploded, trappingthe firefighters in 2,500-degree heat. In 60 seconds, it was over. Twelve hotshots died, among them three 18-year-olds, three 19-year-olds and two brothers.Ten others were burned, many critically. The Loop fire of Nov. 1, 1966, was a watershed in wild land firefighting. It led to a clearerunderstanding of the perils posed by narrow canyons, of the way they could, with the slightestmeteorological provocation, become chimneys poised to explode with the tiniest spark. - Sayre Fire: Hallowed Ground for Firefighters by Brian Humphrey, LAFD Spokesman who tells "the story behind the name of El Cariso Park"which served as the Incident Command Post during the Sayre Fire in 2008. | Online Article With the flames too tempting a focus, nary a reporter would ask the question. A question whichwhen answered, would put both meaning and perspective into the Herculean effort offirefighters working the Sayre Wildland Fire. For 'El Cariso' was not merely chosen as a nice sounding name for the 79-acre park, but rathera distinct honor bestowed upon hallowed ground to honor the memory of twelve wildlandfirefighters, members of the El Cariso Hotshots. Ten would die on the mountain and two wouldlater succumb, in a November 1, 1966 wildfire that scorched the same area of the western SanGabriel Mountains that burned this week. (more at the link) - From the ashes, monumental memories 11/7/12 | Online Article (No longer online.) Last week, a memorial was relocated in the San Fernando Valley, a bit of granite that wasmoved for improvements at El Cariso Community Regional Park. The marker is modest,standing in sharp contrast to the tragedy it commemorates: Forty-six years ago this month, 31young men were dispatched to a wildfire near Sylmar, and only 19 of them survived. Rich Leak was 19 that summer, the gung-ho son of a Camp Pendleton fire captain. “All my life,”he recalls “I had wanted to be a fireman.” After attending a summer firefighting program at theU.S. Marine base, he had joined an elite ground crew of “hotshots” based near Lake Elsinore,so called because they were dispatched to the hottest parts of forest blazes. By 1966, hissecond year with the El Cariso Hotshots, he was a crew foreman, traveling the West to cut firelines and clear brush around raging wildfires and “loving the excitement and the adrenalin rush.” The Nov. 1, 1966, call came on a hot day at the end of a long fire season: A faulty power linehad sparked a brushfire near Pacoima Dam. Whipped by Santa Ana winds, the blaze hadcharred some 2,000 acres around Loop Canyon. But it appeared to be dying by the time Leakand his fellow hotshots got what they regarded as an easy assignment... (more at the link) Return to top

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1966 11/01 CA 12-Fatality Loop

Photos, Videos, & Tributes - In 1997, 30 years later, the Loop fire fallen and survivors are read into the CongressionalRecord.

- Website with many photos and personal recollections: El Cariso Hotshots 1966maintained by David Westley, a crew member in 1966 - Memorial, dedicated 30 years after the fire, in 1996

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1966 11/01 CA 12-Fatality Loop

- Creation of a Park: El Cariso Community Regional Park - 45th anniversary: Hotlist Thread 11/1/11

Return to top Contributors to this article: Gordon King who presented at a hotshot meeting in themid-2000s, Doug Campbell, David S. Westley and Scott Gorman for the memorial markerphotos. Rod Seewald sent the crew photos to the webmaster of the El Cariso Hotshot site in thefall of 1966. It's unknown if he is the photographer. Firefighters who organized and produced theStaff Ride after Gordon's Hotshot talk did a great job. There were others who shared stories, toomany to name here. If you'd like to be added to this list, please let me know via the PlanningContact. Mellie

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