The Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center has released a Facilitated Learning Analysis for an incident within an incident. Three of the seven smokejumpers that parachuted into the Miner Camp Peak Fire on July 29 east of Meadow, Utah were injured when landing. (Map) Two injuries were to the hand or wrist and the other was diagnosed at the scene as a broken collar bone or at least the potential for one.
The jumpers were evacuated by two helicopters, an air ambulance and a helicopter with hoist capabilities.
The jumpers received the resource order for the fire at 8:30 a.m. on July 29 while they were engaged in physical training. Since some of them “like to run trails in the surrounding area”, they did not get off the ground until 10:30. Due to the delayed departure, the distance they had to fly, and multiple issues related to fuel, the seven jumpers did not arrive on the ground at the fire until 5 p.m.
You can read the FLA here. (2.1 MB .pdf file)
The timeline raises major concerns. In 2018, how can a unit still take all day to respond to a dispatch and maintain relevance?