Cohesion and Fire Crews—A Long- Standing Concern

Experts who have studied why people died fighting wildfires have long noted a connection between fire crew cohesion and fatalities. Let's look at this connection in the context of three firefighting tragedies.

Intracrew and Intercrew Cohesion Problems in Three Firefighting Tragedies

Intracrew cohesion is the cohesion within a single crew fighting a fire. Intercrew cohesion refers to cohesion between different crews fighting the same fire as well as their cohesion with fire managers.

In this paper I will focus on intracrew and intercrew cohesion of the ground crews. Cohesion with fire managers is critical during fire transition, but it will not be considered here. I will use the Mann Gulch, South Canyon, and Thirtymile Fires to illustrate the dangers when intracrew and intercrew cohesion are not established before crews chase fires that blow up. Until recently, few of my studies have focused on wildland firefighting crews. I will blend my ideas on cohesion with some brilliant insights provided by Karl Weick, who wrote about the collapse of sensemaking in firefighting crews (Weick 1993, 1995).

The Mann Gulch Fire— Failure in Intracrew Cohesion

In South Canyon Revisited (1995), Weick compared the Mann Gulch and South Canyon Fire disasters. He points to the lack of crew cohesion in both fires. The Mann Gulch crew collapse is a clear example of the consequences of a lack of intracrew cohesion. Weick wrote:

Since the crew did not know each other well, since Dodge knew only three of them, since several were on their first jump, and since Dodge himself was rusty on leading a crew, it was imperative to build some common understandings and common action into this assortment of strangers. That didn't happen.

Weick, quoting from Norman Maclean's book, Young Men and Fire (1992), points out that the smokejumpers at Mann Gulch were probably not a crew at all. They were merely "loosely coupled" firefighters without any intracrew cohesion. Weick wrote:

As the entity of a crew dissolved, it is not surprising that the final command from the"crew" leader to jump into an escape fire was heard not as a legitimate order but as the ravings of someone who had "gone nuts."

The South Canyon Fire— Failure in Intercrew Cohesion

The South Canyon fire illustrates the absence of intercrew cohesion. It would be hard to argue that the Prineville Hotshots lacked intracrew cohesion. Smokejumpers and helitack crews at the South Canyon fire also probably had cohesion within their own ranks. Strong intercrew cohesion did not exist among the three crews fighting the fire. Quoting from the report of the incident investigation team (USDA Forest Service 1995):

As is typical in extended attack situations, firefighting groups arrived on the fire at intervals from dispersed locations and blended into the existing organization.

Weick focused on the word "blended," when he wrote:

The key word there is "blended." Blending sounds like something that occurs automatically, not something that people work at. Many would say it is hard to blend into an "existing organization" if that organization itself is invisible, as was the case for some people at South Canyon. Some people trying to blend did not know who the Incident Commander was, or which radio traffic had the force of authority, or what the suppression strategy was, since it seemed counterintuitive.

The Thirtymile Fire—Failure of Intracrew and Intercrew Cohesion

As one of the investigators of the Thirtymile Fire, I was able to make firsthand observations of crew cohesion. I found problems with both intracrew and intercrew cohesion. The Northwest Regulars No. 6, the type II crew that was entrapped, was made up of a mixture of two crews from two different districts. When these crews were configured into a single type II crew, they lacked intracrew cohesion.

The two crews had not trained or worked together. For the most part, they were two crews of strangers caught up fighting a fire that suddenly escaped. The type II crew boss/incident commander was unfamiliar to the Naches crew. Home crew cohesion was apparent when I found that firefighters from each of the two districts drew close to each other while they were in the "safety zone" waiting for the fire to pass.

For the most part, the crew from the Lake/Leavenworth Ranger District gathered on the road. The Naches crew, except for one person, gathered together on the rocks above the road. As the fire approached, people sought security; they wanted to be close to their trusted crew leaders and fellow crewmembers. These were the Intercrew cohesion Breakdown of intercrew cohesion people with whom they shared intracrew cohesion. This clustering into cohesive crews explains why the four people who died on the rocks belonged to the Naches crew. The crewmembers from the Lake/Leavenworth Ranger District were on the road with their familiar crew leader.

In this tragic incident, intracrew cohesion probably saved the lives of the Lake/Leavenworth crew. They "hung together" and deployed their shelters on the road. However, the same intracrew cohesion spelled doom for the Naches crew.

Come Down Out of the Rocks—That's Not the Place to Be

Let me try to explain why I feel the squad boss from the Naches crew did not comply with "orders" from the crew boss who reportedly told him three times: "Come down out of rocks. That's not the place to be." As the type II crew waited in the safety zone, they had collective uncertainty about what whether to deploy on the road or on the rocks. Social psychologist, Karl Weick (1993), refers to such periods of extreme uncertainty as "cosmology episodes…when people suddenly, and deeply feel that the universe is no longer a rational, orderly system. What makes such an episode so shattering is that both the sense of what is occurring and the means to rebuild that sense collapse."

Weick noted that when groups are confronted by anomie (a collapse of social stability) during "cosmological episodes" they will always seek to restore a sense of control and order by falling back into their intracohesive groups and taking direction from their home crew leaders. Weick wrote about it this way:

"Collegial authority patterns overlay bureaucratic ones as the tempo of operations increase. Formal rank and status decline as a reason for obedience."

The Lake/Leavenworth crew boss, in addition to being the incident commander, was also the overall crew boss formally in charge of both crews making up the type II crew. While waiting for the fire to pass, the Lake/Leavenworth crew stayed cohesive and remained near their crew boss on the road. However, in this situation, the crew boss' formal authority over the Naches crew did not carry much weight. The members of the Naches crew waited together on the rocks above the road and died with their natural intracrew leader. The collegial authority of the Naches crew leader had more legitimacy for the Naches crew than the formally assigned power of the overall type II crew boss. The Naches crew members and their leader followed the basic social rule that governs people during anomic moments (when rules governing sensemaking and action collapse). During such times, people naturally seek to be in their intracohesive groups with their trusted leaders.

More Intercrew Cohesion Problems at the Thirtymile Fire

Engine Crew No. 704 and the Entiat interagency hotshot crew were also fighting the fire. There can be little doubt the engine and hotshot crews had high levels of intracrew cohesion. However, the investigation report shows all sorts of confusion regarding failures to blend their efforts into a single intercohesive firefighting unit with the type II crew.