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A listener note. Against the Odds uses dramatizations that are based on true events. Some elements, including dialogue, may be invented, but everything is based on research. Arizona forestry firefighter Rush Shoemate squints into the late afternoon sun and studies the smoke rising from a ridge three miles to the west. A wildfire is burning along that ridge, and it's Shoemate's job to stop it. But right now, he's losing the battle.
He's standing in the parking lot of the Ranch House Restaurant outside Yarnell, Arizona. Yesterday, the plume was wispy and white, but overnight, the smoke turned gray, a worrying sign that the fire was getting hotter and more intense.
It started down in a ravine covered in thick desert vegetation called Chaparral, a mix of small trees and shrubs like scrub oak, juniper, and manzanita. It hasn't rained here in months, so the Chaparral is bone dry. Perfect fuel for a wildfire.
Shoemate lifts his radio and calls up to a plane that's circling the ridge. Jerry, you got eyes on the fire? What's the size? 80 acres. Maybe more. Shoemate groans. This morning, the fire covered just two acres. He knows they've let it get away from them.
It's nearly 6 p.m. on Saturday, June 29th, 2013. Early this morning, about 12 hours ago, Shoemate dispatched a few fire engines to battle the blaze. He also ordered a crew of six inmates from the local prison to use chainsaws to cut brush to form a fire break, a line that's clear of burnable vegetation, to deprive the fire of fuel and stop it from advancing.
But the fire engines didn't have enough water to put out the fire, and the prisoners were delayed until 11 a.m. They did great work cutting brush, until mid-afternoon, when their chainsaws ran out of gasoline. By the time they could refuel, the fire burned right through the area where the inmate crew was creating the firebreak. Shoemake gets back on the radio to the pilot.
Can you get a sense of which direction it's going? Northeast towards Highway 89, and I've got bad news, Russ. The fire just jumped the ATV track. Looks like the wind carried some embers over. Shoemake curses. It's the worst news yet. He was counting on that ATV track as his failsafe fire break. Now the fire could easily threaten the towns of Yarnell and People's Valley. The thought makes Shoemate's chest tighten.
He grabs his cell phone to dial the federal government's fire command center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Hey Tom, it's Rush Shoemade in Yarnell. This fire's turning into a real bastard. I know it's a big ass, but is the VLAT available? VLAT stands for Very Large Air Tanker, a plane that can dump 12,000 gallons of fire retardant on the blaze.
Russ, the V-LAT costs $57,000 per run. How big is your fire? 80 acres and growing.
But you can't make an exception? You know how dry it is here. This thing could really blow up if we don't contain it soon. Shumei pleads, but it does no good.
He's not surprised. Dumping fire retardant after dark can be dangerous, and it's hard to hit the target. Still, he's disappointed that he won't be getting his V-Lat. He hangs up and rubs his temples. He stares up at the gray smoke on the ridge and sighs. At this point, he's only got one option. Call in some hotshots, firefighters who specialize in wildfires.
There's no crew based in Yarnell, so at this point no one will arrive until tomorrow. But he'll need them bright and early. With all the other fires burning in the region, he hopes there are enough crews available. Because if the hotshots can't get this fire under control, then it could easily grow into one of the worst fires of the season. And consume not just Chaparral, but people's homes.
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Early efforts to contain the blaze failed, and by the next day, the fire was spreading dangerously, fed by high temperatures, strong winds, and dry conditions. That's when local officials began calling in "Hotshots", highly trained crews that specialize in battling wildfires. The first crew on the scene was the Granite Mountain Hotshots from nearby Prescott, an upstart group with something to prove.
This is Episode 2, Into the Breach. Amanda Marsh takes the hand of her husband Eric and kisses him on the cheek. They're walking hand in hand through Courthouse Square in downtown Prescott, Arizona. It's just past 9 p.m. on Saturday, June 29th.
In the square, children play tag and teenagers drag race down the nearby street. Eric and Amanda just had dinner together and she wants to enjoy the cool evening air after a brutally hot day. Eric, however, wants to talk about work. As usual. I just can't believe the mayor. He wants to cut our budget again. He's so short-sighted.
She sighs. In their three years together, she's heard this complaint a thousand times. The city of Prescott pays for the Granite Mountain hot shots, but the crew is often dispatched to fight fires in other parts of Arizona or in other states altogether. So the penny pinchers in city government keep slicing their budget and trying to disband the crew.
But Eric argues that this doesn't make sense. Yes, they travel elsewhere, but crews from other areas and other states take the call when fires erupt here that are too big for his crew to fight alone. Someday, Prescott will need to be bailed out. The Granite Mountain crew is insurance for the future. Amanda nods sympathetically as they walk, and Eric rants. She steers him to a bench. Okay, that's enough work talk. Yeah, sorry, I'm just wound up.
"What you need is to relax, and I think I have just the solution." She leans in and playfully nips his cheek. Eric laughs. "Okay, okay, alright. I can take a hint. Let's head back." Eric's phone rings, and Amanda's heart sinks. It's the AC/DC ringtone, which means it's hotshot-related. Eric flips his phone open and wanders off, leaving her alone on the bench.
She sits back and crosses her arms. He's worked pretty much every single day in June, including today. Is just one night without a work interruption too much to ask? Eric finally returns. "You're gonna hate me, but I accepted a job for the crew tomorrow." "But you promised you'd take a few days off." "The guys need the overtime. Plus, this one's in our backyard."
He explains that the fire is just 40 miles away, and it's threatening Yarnell and People's Valley. If his crew can get there first thing tomorrow and beat it back, that could show those idiot politicians in Prescott that they're worth the money. They'd be saving homes, saving lives. Amanda is heartbroken. She really wanted this time with Eric, but she knows it's important for the crew's future. She takes Eric's hand again. Okay.
At least we'll have tonight. But Eric shakes his head. I gotta sleep at the station and be there to brief the guys in the morning. Can you drop me off? He hands her the keys to his truck. She's stunned. Are you serious? Listen, I'll make it up to you. I promise. Okay? Without waiting for her answer, he starts walking toward his truck. On the way, he calls his crew members. Like she's not even there.
When she first started dating Eric, she told a friend that he was 10% hers and 90% hotshot. She meant it as a joke, but the longer they're married, the less funny it seems.
Gary Cordes creeps along the dark streets of Yarnell in his pickup. It's just before midnight on Saturday, June 29th. He studies the front yard of each and every home he passes, and his practiced eye tells him that this town is not prepared for a fire. There's thick, burnable brush everywhere.
Cordis is a county fire chief, and he lives an hour away. Around 9 p.m., Rush's shoemate called and asked him to take responsibility for protecting homes and businesses in Yarnell, if the fire reaches the town. Cordis immediately packed up and left for Yarnell. For the past half hour, he's been driving the streets, getting a lay of the land.
Yarnell has a population of around 650, mostly hippies and retirees. People move there to be close to nature, but Cordes realizes most of them don't appreciate how dangerous nature can be. Cordes turns into the long driveway of a home to check out its backyard. He idles along, trying not to disturb anyone sleeping inside.
At the end of the driveway, he flips on his high beams. He's pained at what he sees. There's brush growing within a yard of the house, tangles of scrub oak and thick bushes that have lost most of their leaves during the drought. There are tree branches hanging over the roof, too. If any of that caught fire, the house would burn up.
Yarnell has not experienced a major fire since 1966, and it's clear to Cordes that people have gotten complacent. Cordes flips off his high beams and reverses out of the driveway. He checks out a few more houses, and it's the same story. Tangles of dangerous brush everywhere. Right now, the winds are pushing the fire away from Yarnell.
But if those winds change, Cordis fears there's nothing he can do except help people evacuate. The homes and the businesses of Yarnell will be doomed. Brendan McDonough yawns as he opens the door to the Granite Mountain Hotshot Station in Prescott. He can still remember how nervous he felt the first time he walked in here for his job interview. Now, two years later, it feels like home.
Today, though, he'd rather be curled up in bed. It's 6 a.m. on Sunday, a day the crew usually has off. He's not feeling his best, and the station's foul locker room smell isn't helping. He's been out sick for the past two days, and yesterday he went to a funeral for a friend's father. After, he went out drinking with his roommate Chris McKenzie. When he got the call about working today…
He was already half tanked. Now he's got a mean hangover. And he's not the only one. He sees about ten guys, half the crew, slumped down in chairs with their black hardhats lowered over their eyes. They're dressed in fireproof yellow shirts and dark green fireproof pants. Four of them are rookies, and it's just their third fire.
McDonough glances at a whiteboard in the corner where guys write inspirational quotes or random facts they find online. Today it says, cows who listen to classical music produce more milk.
But the whiteboard has a serious purpose too. There's a list of all 20 guys on the crew, and a box next to each name marked status. In the box, they indicate their energy level on a scale from 1 to 100. That way Superintendent Eric Marsh can sense how everyone's feeling. McDonough sees that the numbers today are low. Chris McKenzie wrote 77, meaning he's just feeling okay.
Another crew member put down 35, which translates to barely awake. They've worked pretty much every day this month, so McDonough understands why they're tired. But they look like a bunch of zombies. They need to be fully alert to fight this fire. McDonough grabs the whiteboard marker.
Next to where it says "Donut", his nickname, he writes "HELL YEAH" in capital letters. Then McDonough walks over to a CD player and puts on his favorite hip-hop album.
Woo! All right. We're going to get some fires today, baby. He does a ludicrous robot dance, moving his arms mechanically side to side. Then he dances like he's at a rave, high on ecstasy. Most of the guys roll their eyes, but a few chuckle. Mackenzie shakes his head.
Now everyone laughs. And as they grab their gear for the 43 mile drive to Yarnell, there's a spring in their step. McDonough is glad he put a little life in them and woke himself up too.
He watches the guys load the trucks, tossing in their packs and bantering like the hotshots he's used to. He's got a feeling it's going to be a good day. Eric Marsh glances up at the clock on the wall of a tiny office in the Yarnell fire station. It's nearly 8am and a dozen people are crowded in here, sitting in folding chairs, including the leaders of other hotshot crews.
He nods at an acquaintance from the Blue Ridge Hot Shots, who he's worked with before. Marsh wishes more of his crew could be at this briefing, but the Yarnell station is small and they're already crammed into this office. Ironically, it's probably a fire hazard to have this many people in here, and the claustrophobic setting doesn't help Marsh's grumpy mood.
He got a terrible night's sleep at the station. Plus, he fought with his wife Amanda just before she dropped him off. It was the usual stuff about him working too much. He snapped at her, which he shouldn't have done. He still feels guilty about it. He'll apologize later, but right now, he's eager to get up to date on the fire. As the clock hits 8 a.m., Marsh sees County Fire Chief Gary Cordes walk in.
Marsh raises his hand. 4%.
Marsh whistles. A kiln-dried 2x4 at Home Depot has maybe 12% moisture. Anything less than that in nature is considered highly flammable and very dangerous. Cordis pulls out an iPad and goes to Google Earth. He wants to show everyone a few things on a map.
First are the so-called trigger points, three local landmarks. If the fire reaches the first trigger point, a finger-shaped mountain, they'll evacuate Yarnell residents. If the fire reaches a second trigger point, a rounded hill, they'll pull all firefighting personnel out of the backcountry and into town. Cordes points to another detail on the map.
The third trigger point is this ridge line right near town. If the fire hits this ridge line, everyone in town needs to evacuate. All remaining firefighters, all rescue personnel, everyone. We'll call that the "Aw, crap" line. Only, I don't mean crap. Okay, now we're gonna talk about your safety retreat point.
As the briefing finishes, Cordis gives each hotshot crew their assignment. Marsh leans forward. He's eager to be right in the thick of things.
but Cordis assigns the Granite Mountain crew to clear fire breaks on the back end of the fire. Marsh is disappointed. It's not the kind of assignment that will earn his crew any more recognition or funding from his hometown leaders. As the meeting breaks up, Marsh pulls Cordis aside.
"Why are we stuck at the back of the fire?" "It's an important job. Someone's gotta do it in case the flames double back, and I'm putting you in charge of that whole end. You'll have complete control." "Yeah, but we want to be where the action is." They argue for another minute. Finally, Cortus agrees to consider shifting them forward once they have the back end secured with firebreaks. But until then, he wants Granite Mountain behind the fire, not in front of it. Marsh sulks off to find his men.
He'll do his duty, just like in the military. Firefighters obey their orders. But his crew came here to save lives and earn respect. And it's hard to do that at the back end of the fire. He finds his crew outside the station, milling around their trucks, drinking Gatorade and eating beef jerky.
They're the best damn hotshots here. He's certain of it. He owes it to them and the town of Yarnell to find a way to get them into the heart of the action, where they can really prove themselves.
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He removes his cowboy hat and places it on the desk, next to where some smart aleck wrote "School sucks." Five minutes later, Rush Shoemate enters the classroom. It's 9:00 AM on Sunday, June 30th. Earlier this morning, Shoemate moved the fire command center here to Peoples Valley's lone K-8 school. It has more space, but unfortunately, it doesn't come with adult-sized furniture.
Hall gestures to a desk even tinier than his, and both men laugh. Shoemate pats his big belly. "I'll stand, thanks. Let's start." As of now, Shoemate has worked too many consecutive hours in a row, and fire regulations mandate that he has to take time off. He's handing over command of the Yarnell Hill fire to Hall. But from what Hall can see so far, Shoemate is handing him a mess.
Hall starts with some questions. So, why aren't the radios working? I'm hearing guys can't get messages out there. We're looking into it. I mean, do they at least have good maps? I've been up to those ridges. You can't get much cell service. Well, that's been a problem too. These are all we could find.
Shoemate unfolds a paper from his pocket. Hall is stunned. It's a real estate map they distribute at local grocery stores. You sent them out there with these? This isn't a Sunday afternoon house hunt. We didn't have better options. The county budget has been murderous since the housing market crashed, but Gary Cordes gave the crews a good overview of the land before they went out.
Hall sighs and asks Shoemate about the overall plan to stop the fire. Shoemate points to a few spots on the real estate map where the ground is flat. They have a bulldozer clearing brush to create fire breaks in those areas, but the bulldozer can't clear anything on steep slopes. That's where the firefighters come in. Shoemate moves his finger over a couple inches.
The Granite Mountain Hotshot crew is building a fire break on the back end. Other crews are building breaks toward the front. Overall, they're working to connect the various bulldozer breaks. Hall nods. Radio and map issues aside, it seems like they have a good strategy in place for containing the fire. A local fire deputy ducks into the room. Well, I guess congratulations are in order. Why?
The Yarnell Hill fire has grown so quickly that it's now the number one fire priority in Arizona. Hall smiles grimly. Then he extracts himself from the tiny desk to get to work. First, he's going to call the National Weather Service. Thunderstorms are supposedly rolling in this afternoon. Storms usually mean high winds, which can lead to fast-moving, unpredictable fires.
Then he'll call the Federal Command Center in Albuquerque and demand more firefighters, more planes, more everything. If this is now the most pressing fire in Arizona, it's time the government started treating it that way. Brendan McDonough slams his ads into the dirt. It's a tool that looks like a cross between an axe and a hoe, with a flat metal blade on a wooden handle.
he works the handle back and forth breaking up the hard soil of the trail then he steps forward and swings again repeating the process nearby some of the rookie hot shots are cutting down bushes with chainsaws mcdonough studies their work then waves his hand to get their attention hey cut those lower to the ground those stumps can still burn then throw what you cut to the other side of the trail
They give a thumbs up and get back to work. They're widening a mountain bike trail on the ridge overlooking Yarnell. Dense chaperone crowds the trail on either side. Four to five foot tall thickets of scrub oak, as well as withered bushes and dwarf manzanita trees. It's thick and dry and burns easily. They need to remove it all.
McDonough is breaking up the trail itself and clearing out roots. They're trying to prevent any possibility of the fire jumping across. Making fire breaks is always back-breaking, and it's especially brutal today. It must be 100 degrees out, and it's not even 10 a.m. McDonough stops to rest and looks around.
Near the top of the ridge, he can see what hotshots call the black, the burned out charred area. Hotshots always note where the black is because it's a safe retreat point. Fires can't burn what's already burned.
Down the ridge lies the opposite of the black, what hotshots call the green. The green is dangerous because it can still burn. Not that these slopes look all that green. They're part shades of brown and yellow. Down into the green, he can see the granite mountain fire trucks that his crew parked halfway up the hill.
Up from the trucks, still about 100 yards below his current position, McDonough sees the rest of the Granite Mountain crew. They're burning higher-density brush with their portable drip torches. While McDonough watches, his roommate Chris McKenzie happens to look up. He flips McDonough off. McDonough smiles and picks up his ads.
Normally, he'd resent the digging assignment. It's a rookie job. But Eric Marsh specifically asked him to lead the guys clearing this crucial area. If they can establish a good firebreak here, it will be impossible for the flames to double back south and threaten Yarnell from behind. Marsh has never put McDonough in charge of a crew before, and McDonough wants to impress.
They work for another hour, sweating buckets in their thick protective clothing. McDonough sees Marsh walking up toward him from a distance. Marsh always wears a red helmet, so he's easily identifiable. The boss picks his teeth as he studies the firebreak. McDonough watches him nervously. Finally, Marsh speaks. Pretty good line, Donut. Finish up and join the rest of the crew below.
McDonough feels a surge of pride. His first leadership assignment, and he nailed it. Two years ago, he walked into the station a directionless junkie, and now he's a leader. He gestures to the chainsaw teams to keep going and attacks the last few yards of trail with renewed vigor. Eric Marsh shades his eyes and shouts directions to his crew.
They're clearing a fire break on a slope by burning chaparral with drip torches. He checks his watch. It's 11:30 AM, and they're making good progress. If they finish by mid-afternoon, they can shift over to the front line of the fire and help battle the actual flames. And there should be plenty to do. Chatter on the radio is saying the blaze has grown to 1,500 acres now.
Marsh hears a plane and glances up. Planes have been dumping fire retardant over the northern edge of the fire all morning, but there hasn't been much activity down here. He figures the plane must be lining up for an approach. But to Marsh's shock, the plane dips low, and just a hundred yards away from his men, it unleashes several thousand gallons of red fluid. The retardant completely covers the area Marsh planned to burn next.
He groans. Reporters and politicians tend to put a lot of stock in dumping fire retardant. It looks dramatic on television, but hotshots like Marsh know better.
Fire retardant can put out small fires, and it can certainly slow down big ones. But fire retardant cannot stop big fires. You can only stop a big fire by removing the fuel in its path. That's what his crew was trying to do, but now there's wet retardant all over that area. The retardant will prevent their torches from burning the brush, but it won't stop the actual fire.
It's the worst of both worlds. Furious, Marsh grabs his portable radio to call Air Attack, the plane coordinating the other vehicles in the sky. What the hell are you doing? I'm trying to burn that area. Air Attack mutters some excuses. Marsh signs off in disgust. He sees his second-in-command approaching, the ex-Marine Jesse Steed. What now, Chief?
Hands on hips, Marsh assesses their options. Burning this area is now futile, so he radios another local hotshot crew, the Blue Ridge team. The Blue Ridge superintendent suggests that Marsh's team shift a half mile north to another slope to connect some bulldozer breaks there. Marsh likes the plan. It's closer to the fire, but when he ends the call, Steed frowns and points at the slope they're headed to.
Marsh nods. He thinks about who to assign that job, and decides Brendan McDonough. He's been out sick the past two days, and he could probably use a rest after his tough gig this morning.
Marsh strides off to gather his crew. Despite his annoyance with the planes, he's feeling excited now. They're finally heading closer to where the action is. Fire Chief Roy Hall throws down his bologna sandwich in frustration. The relay towers for the radios out on the ridge have been acting up all day, and he's having trouble reaching firefighters in the field.
Hall is sitting at the one adult-sized desk in the new command center, in the K-8 school in Peoples Valley. Behind him, several deputies are calling various fire agencies, begging for equipment and personnel. It's loud and it's chaotic.
Hall fiddles with the radio unit brought over from the fire station. It's half past noon, and he's trying to reach a crew of volunteer firefighters led by Bob Brandon, the People's Valley fire captain. Bob, do you read me? Over. Hall wants Brandon's crew to shift positions and start clearing fire breaks in some ravines closer to People's Valley. The prevailing winds and path of the fire have put People's Valley under more serious threat than Yarnell.
But for the past 30 minutes, he hasn't been able to get the damn radios to reach the ground crews. All he hears is static. He finally radios up to air attack, his eye in the sky. He tells the pilot to relay the instructions to the crews if they can. Maybe they'll have better luck.
Worried that this might be his last chance to eat for a while, Hall wolfs down the rest of his sandwich. Then he licks his fingers and moves on to the next task, checking the weather forecast. It's bad news. There are now two thunderstorms approaching, one from the north, one from the south. They're going to collide around 3:30 PM, right over the fire.
If the south storm gains the upper hand, it could accelerate the fire in the direction it's moving now, toward People's Valley. If the north one wins, it could send the fire back in the opposite direction, toward Yarnell. Either way, the high winds will fan the flames and the blaze will pick up speed.
Hall turns around at his desk and gets a deputy's attention. "I want you to check with the National Weather Service every 15 minutes. Keep me updated on those storms." A local volunteer rushes into the library, waving her arms frantically. "The thicket's on fire!" "Which thicket?" "Across from the school!" Hall's eyes dart toward the window. He can see the main fire on the ridge, a thin, bright glowing line of orange flames.
But then he sees what the volunteer is talking about. A spot fire burning in a thicket of cactus and scrub oaks much closer to the school. An ember from the main fire must have started it. It's no more than 400 yards away. The volunteer looks alarmed.
Should we evacuate? Hall grimaces. He doesn't want to do that. If they move the command center again, that will make things even more chaotic in the field. But they obviously can't just sit here in the path of the fire.
He hurries toward the door. He wants to get outside and study the thicket fire before he decides whether to evacuate. There are some fire engines nearby if worst comes to worst, but he'd hate to pull crews and resources off the main fire.
As he heads outside, he feels his throat tightening up. He fears he's losing control of this fire. That the fire is now calling the shots, and he's simply reacting. It's a terrifying thought. A fire chief's worst nightmare. And depending on what those thunderstorms do, the situation might be about to get a whole lot worse.
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It's 3 p.m. on June 30th, and Marsh and his crew are resting atop a ridge west of Yarnell in the hot mid-afternoon sun. They're watching the fire burn beneath them, spread out along a line, probably two miles long. The southern edge of the fire now creeps into the area where his crew was trying to clear a fire break a few hours ago. That was before the plane dropped liquid retardant all over it.
And just as he feared, the area covered in retardant has caught fire. Had the plane not interfered, his crew's firebreaks would have stopped the fire in its tracks. It's incredibly frustrating to watch. And that's not Marsh's only frustration. He tries his radio again. Command Center, this is Granite Mountain. Do you have our extra men yet?
He's trying to reach Fire Chief Roy Hall's people in the Incident Command Center at the school up in People's Valley. Marsh and his men have been toiling away since 9 a.m., over six hours. For the past three, they've been cutting along a steep slope, trying to connect a few bulldozer lines. But they need more men to do the job right, and he can't reach the command center to find out where the reinforcements are. ♪
His crew had to stop to get some food in them, so they retreated up the ridge to the black, the safe burned-out area around these boulders. They plopped down, chugged some water, and opened their MREs for a very late lunch. MREs are Meals Ready to Eat. They originated in the military, and hotshots get by on them when they're in the field.
It's so swelteringly hot that most guys haven't bothered to use the little thermal packets to heat up their food. So, they're gnawing on lukewarm ribs, lukewarm chicken, and lukewarm beef enchiladas. Bon appetit.
Marsh considers his half-eaten meal and instead unzips his pocket and pulls out a Clif Bar. Then he gets back on his radio to try the Command Center again. "Command Center. Again. This is Granite Mountain." Nothing. There are supposedly 400 men and women out there fighting the Blaze. Why can't he get a dozen to help clear this firebreak? What is going on at the Command Center?
Fire Chief Roy Hall slams open the emergency exit doors of the school in People's Valley and steps outside. The air around him is dark with smoke. Coughing, he holds open the doors and waves his arm to usher people out. Everyone, come on! Let's go! Get outside!
When the last person exits, he peers into the hallway to determine whether everyone is left. But the school is filling with smoke too, making it hard to see. So he pulls his shirt up over his mouth and jogs down the hall, peering into classrooms. Over the past three hours, things at the school command center have gone from bad to worse.
After studying the nearby spot fire, Hall initially decided not to evacuate. The fire wasn't moving fast, and it was burning in a thicket on the other side of a wide blacktop road, which provided a good fire break. Plus, unlike most buildings in town, the school is made of solid concrete, which won't burn. But right behind the spot fire, the larger Yarnell Hill fire kept creeping closer.
Twenty minutes ago, it reached the edge of the thicket. Then embers wafted across the road and landed in a field of dry grass adjacent to the school, which immediately caught fire. Hall rushed fire trucks over to spray the grass, but the field burned right up, and the wind pushed all the smoke toward the school. The smoke got sucked up into the air conditioning vents, filling the school. They had no choice but to evacuate.
Hall finishes checking all the rooms. It seems that everyone got out safe. He ducks outside through a side door and takes deep breaths to clear the smoke from his lungs. But after he catches his breath, his worries shift. It's going to be difficult to keep coordinating things in the field without the command center.
Plus, the northbound and southbound thunderstorms will be arriving any minute and colliding over the fires. Gusts could reach 40 miles per hour. Everyone at the school is safe, for now. But if the northbound storm wins out, the school itself, and People's Valley beyond it, will all be in a world of trouble.
Brendan McDonough stands on a granite knoll, wiping the sweat from his brow and fanning the front of his sopping shirt. For three hours, he's been acting as a lookout to protect his crewmates a half mile south of him, where they can't see the fire directly. But there's been little to report, just a creeping fire and a plume of grey smoke to the north.
He's mostly been thinking about how hot he is. The sun is relentless. He can even feel heat radiating upward from the rock he's standing on. He checks his thermometer. It's 104 now.
Right then, his radio squawks. It's Jesse Steed, Granite Mountain's second-in-command. Donut, what's the weather? I was just looking. 104 and climbing. I believe it. Humidity? Give me a minute.
To fight a fire, you need to not only know the local conditions, but the hyperlocal. Temperature and humidity can vary drastically, even from one ridge to another, so all firefighters carry weather instruments. Determining humidity takes the most work. From his backpack, McDonough removes a device called a psychrometer. It's a bulb thermometer covered by a cloth sleeve and attached to a yard-long chain.
McDonough douses the cloth in water, then dangles the chain and swings the thermometer in a circle. As the thermometer swings, the cloth loses water to the air. This evaporation cools the thermometer, just like the evaporation of sweat cools your body.
The drier the air, the faster the loss of water, and the farther the temperature reading falls. Based on the total temperature drop after two minutes, you can determine the humidity from a chart. McDonough stops swinging the chain, notes the new temperature, and pulls the laminated chart from his pack. He whistles and radios to Steed. Bad news, buddy. The humidity has dropped three more points from 18 to 15.
McDonough glances over to where his fellow hotshots are sitting on the boulders. They're too far away for him to make out who's who. The only guys he recognizes for sure are Eric Marsh, with his telltale red helmet, and his roommate, Chris McKenzie. He knows McKenzie so well, he can spot him just by the way he swings his arms when he walks. He wishes Chris was here with him. The time would pass much quicker.
McDonough then turns his head and studies his retreat zone, a clear patch of dirt surrounding an old, rusty road excavator. He picked it out upon arriving at the lookout spot a few hours ago. It's a safe clearing if he needs to run. He pulls his helmet down to shade his eyes and turns back to the fire. And this time, to his shock, there's something to see.
Five minutes ago, the gray plume of smoke was bent north following the wind. Now it's standing straight up. The fire seems to be turning. Slowly at first, but with increasing speed, the fire's heading changes from north to east.
It's horrible and mesmerizing all at once, like a giant snake of fire slithering down the ridge. The blaze has essentially turned 90 degrees clockwise. Now it's flowing downhill, pushed along by what appears to be increasingly high winds.
McDonough swallows hard. The fire is now headed straight for Yarnell, and if that's not bad enough, if the fire keeps turning and keeps gaining strength, it will soon be running straight towards him. This is the second episode of our four-part series, Granite Mountain Hotshots Disaster.
A quick note about our scenes. In most cases, we can't exactly know what was said, but everything is based on historical research.
If you'd like to learn more about this event, we recommend the books On the Burning Edge by Kyle Dickman, Granite Mountain by Brendan McDonough, and The Fire Line by Fernanda Santos. I'm your host, Mike Corey. Sam Keen wrote this episode. Our editor is Sean Raviv. Sound design is by Rob Schieliga. Audio engineer is Sergio Enriquez. Coordinating producer is Desi Blaylock.
Produced by Emily Frost and Alita Rosansky. Managing producer is Matt Gant. Senior managing producer is Ryan Lohr. Senior producer is Andy Herman. Executive producers are Jenny Lauer-Beckman, Stephanie Jens, and Marshall Louis for Wondery.
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