The Thirtymile Fire: A Chronicle of Bravery and Betrayal

by John N. Maclean

A riveting account of the deadly Thirtymile fire and the controversy and recriminations that raged in its aftermath, from our premier chronicler of wildfires and those who fight them

 

The Thirtymile fire in the remote North Cascade range near the Canadian border in Washington began as a simple mop-up operation. In a few hours, a series of catastrophic errors led to the entrapment and deaths of four members of the fire crew--two teen-age girls and two young men. Each had brought order and meaning to their lives by joining the fire world. Then the very flames they pursued turned on them, extinguishing their lives. When the victims were blamed for their own deaths, the charge brought a storm of controversy that undermined the firefighting community.


Continuing a tradition established in his previous books, and by his father Norman's Young Men and Fire, John N. Maclean serves as an unflinching guide to the rogue fire's unexpected violence--which is almost matched by the passions released by the official verdict of the blaze. Weaving together the astonishing stories told by the witnesses, the victims' family members, and the official reports, Maclean produces a dramatic narrative of a catastrophe that has changed the way fire is fought. More than anything, it is a story of humanity at risk when wildfire, ancient and unpredictable, breaks loose

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Nature

256 pages, Hardcover

First published May 29, 2007

About the author

John Norman Maclean is a prize-winning author and journalist, has published four books on fatal wildland fires.

Maclean was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1943, the second of two children.Maclean is the son of Norman Maclean, author of the novella A River Runs Through It.

He attended the Chicago school system through high school and graduated from Shimer College, then in Mt. Carroll, Illinois, a former satellite school of the University of Chicago. An honor student at Shimer, he received the school’s distinguished alumni award in 1975.He married Frances Ellen McGeachie in 1968; they have two adult sons, Daniel, a science teacher in Anchorage, Alaska, and John Fitzroy, a public defender for the state of Maryland.


John Maclean was a writer, editor, and reporter for the Chicago Tribune for 30 years before he resigned in 1995 to begin a second career writing books. Maclean started his journalistic career in 1964 as a police reporter and rewrite man with the legendary City News Bureau of Chicago. He went to work for the Chicago Tribune the following year.

In 1970, Maclean was assigned to the Washington Bureau of the Tribune. As diplomatic correspondent there he covered the State Department and was a regular on the "Kissinger Shuttle," covering much of the "shuttle diplomacy" of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Maclean was a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University for the 1974-1975 academic year. He became the Tribune’s Foreign Editor in Chicago in 1988. He resigned from the newspaper in 1995 to write Fire on the Mountain.

Maclean, a frequent speaker at wildland fire academies, workshops, and conventions, is a member of the Seeley Lake Volunteer Fire Department and the Explorer's Club. He is a qualified as a federal public information officer.

Reviews

[Sharon Orlopp · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am tremendously grateful and appreciative of all firefighters. They continually risk their lives while serving their communities. A huge shout out and thank you to all firefighters.

The Thirtymile Fire: A Chronicle of Bravery and Betrayal is about a fire in July 2001 in the North Cascade Range in the state of Washington, just shy of the Canada border. It started as a small, insignificant fire but quickly turned into a fatal, demonic two-headed column plume that roared down the narrow canyons.

One of the most fascinating and tragic aspects of this fatal situation is the small mistakes that linked together and compounded which led to disaster. The author, John N. Maclean, stated it using the analogy of a kaleidoscope, "...scattered particles in a kaleidoscope of tragic inevitability where actions first appear to lack meaningful connections."

Unfortunately, like so many things in life, there were leadership failures. Instead of preparing for the worst, they hoped for the best. Some of the kaleidoscope pieces that contributed to this tragedy included not knowing who was in charge, too many people giving orders, no lookout posted on the ground or in the air after 3:00 pm, water pumps that broke, and miscommunication.

Our collective hope is that we continue to learn from adversity and mistakes so that history doesn't repeat itself.

[Katherine Addison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Maclean's other books that I have read (The Esperanza Fire: Arson, Murder, and the Agony of Engine 57 and Fire on the Mountain: The True Story of the South Canyon Fire) and, of course, his father's brilliant Young Men and Fire, the story of the Thirtymile Fire is the story of people doing the best they can in a tremendously dangerous situation, and what happens when, quite suddenly, "best" isn't good enough. Maclean is very good (and gets better from Fire on the Mountain through The Thirtymile Fire to The Esperanza Fire) at reconstructing the chain of decisions that resulted in catastrophe; both the South Canyon Fire and the Thirtymile Fire are histories of one tiny bad decision layered on top of another tiny bad decision until somehow you end up with dead firefighters. Only four people died in the Thirtymile Fire, but Maclean makes it clear that that was luck as much as anything else--luck and the random flukes of topography in the Chewuch River canyon.

It's sad and sobering how much of both the South Canyon and Thirtymile disasters were caused by bureaucracy, by resources (helicopters, tanker planes, etc.) that were available sitting unused until it was too late for them to do any good simply because nobody with the authority to do so ordered them out. A lot of decisions in modern wildfire-fighting get made by people who aren't on the scene, and that's necessary, but Maclean shows very clearly that it can also be dangerous right on up to lethal.

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book at the library since I have been hiking in the area (near Winthrop) and have seen the chilling memorial. The run-up to the climax and the gut-wrenching description of the entrapment of the fire fighters forced me to read almost the whole book in one sitting.

Very solid -- almost investigative -- account of the 2001 Thirtymile Fire. I found that I really liked knowing the area, and liked knowing at least something about wildfires, thanks to reading (for some reason) "Young Men and Fire" a long time ago (by Norman MacClean, John's dad).

The only problem is, it's dated -- legal proceedings have occurred since then!

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember hearing about the four young (mostly rookie) firefighters who died in this blaze outside of Winthrop in 2001 after becoming trapped. Early reports blamed the victims for not obeying orders and moving into a "safer" area at the entrapment site. This book does a great job of describing the tragedy and the investigations that followed. I was surprised at the number of mistakes by everyone involved on every level--fire commanders on the ground, the actual team leaders of this particular group, dispatchers, pilots reporting the progress of the fire by air, etc. The reader will have to draw their own conclusions as to where to place the blame and it was quite fascinating to me to look back now and see how so many "chance" errors (that would have been fixable if there were only one or two) accumulated into the makings of this tragedy.

[Marva Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author has done an amazing amount of research. I felt I learned a great deal about wildland firefighting, fire forecasting and fire behavior. The story is very tragic. The author shows in hindsight all the human error and bad decisions that could have changed the outcome. It was frustrating see the disaster play out- knowing it could have been prevented. Maclean is a gifted writer. He is very descriptive of the surroundings and the situation. It was easy to put myself in the moment, and feel scared for them.

At little slow getting started. I had a hard time keeping all the names straight, and "who" they were.

I ordered this book for my husband who is trained as a wildland firefighter. This fire is one they use in training for wildland firefighting as an example of "what not to do."

[Matthew Mckinney · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author does not have the gorgeous lyrical voice that his father did, but his investigative chops and obvious passion for the subject of deadly western forest fires and the people who fight them, makes it a worthwhile read. The bar is still set for this niche by Norman Maclean's Young Men and Fire, but after reading that classic story, and knowing that the author helped organize his father's book posthumously, one can see that much of the detail and structure, if not the poeticism, owe a lot to the son's influence. 3.5 stars.

[Janice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book, better than this author's other book about Storm King Mountain. While reading the true story of 4 deaths during the Thirtymile Fire, I wish I could project myself into the real events and somehow change what was happening for a different result. So many mistakes added up to disaster.

[Sally Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

must read for any firefighter

[Einar Jensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two months before 9/11 changed our world, an abandoned campfire in a Washington state canyon exploded into the Thirtymile Fire and killed four firefighters. John Maclean shares the story of this 2001 incident in his book The Thirtymile Fire: A Chronicle of Bravery and Betrayal.

I had read it previously when I was still qualified as a wildland firefighter. I gleaned new lessons from this reading since I have more hands-on, second-hand, and researched experiences as context. The wildfire shows exactly what can happen when the incident commander isn’t able to lead effectively, when the Standard Orders are broken, when Watchout Situations are ignored, when civilians lack situational awareness, when we are overconfident about what fire can do, and when a tradition of accountability results in promotional transfers instead of actual consequences or, at a minimum, self-critical lesson-learning.

This wildfire was among the first in which an incident commander was indicted for actions during an incident and during the investigation. It eventually adjusted the definition of accountability from agency to individual. Unfortunately, that adjustment generated significant pushback from firefighters, which makes me wonder if all our collective talk about safety and crew-first is just talk. If safety is an obstacle and it’s actually about the individual. I certainly hope not. My firefighting cultural values to this day reflect that the strength of the wolf is the pack and the strength of the pack is the wolf.

Maclean is a good researcher and writer. He can make complicated fire behavior and incident management accessible for larger audiences, mostly. Pairing the included photos with maps or at least directions would have helped. I struggled (again) to visualize the canyon in relation to the rock slump, scree field, sandbar, and fire growth. His attention to the “fatal left hook” of the fire reminded me of his father’s investigation into the Mann Gulch Fire. Its cause remains a mystery, but there’s no doubt the firefighters shouldn’t have been there to get dead from it.

It’s a fascinating investigation and a good read.

[Stefanie Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the true story of a poorly built and poorly attended campfire, that ultimately wound up burning over 9,000 acres. It cost over $4 million dollars to fight this fire, with over a thousand firefighters involved in the effort. Four firefighters wound up losing their lives in this fire. There was an investigation that uncovered numerous safety violations and severe lapses in communication. The investigation and criminal charges for this unnecessary loss of life just made me so angry. You are supposed to be well trained, taking care of your team members and yourself, and doing your jobs properly. It seemed like there was a lack of attention and some complacency during this particular event that was very disheartening to me. Growing up in a fire family, books like this really hit me on a personal level. I hope that lessons are learned from these events and applied to fire fighting today.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall very informative on the Thirtymile Fire and those involved. It was interesting learning about everything that happened after the fatalities and trying to figure out exactly what happened weather and decision wise.

That being said, the author sexualizes all women in the book far too much. There was so much unnecessary talk about how pretty, ladylike, attractive, submissive Jessica and Karen were. Literally adds nothing to the story and is unnecessary. And then every other woman brought up, like Karen’s sister or Weavers sister calling her overweight. Why does her weight matter to him, anybody else, or to this story as a whole?!? It doesn’t. And then just small comments about one of the wives and her looks. Why is that important to this story? It’s not. It infuriates me how the author wrote about all the women, so if you can get past that it’s very informative and a good read.

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

Four young men and women died. "The (investigation) report portrays a management fiasco that violated every basic safety rule in the book and the majority of the standing safety cautions."
A large cast of characters makes this intensive report a bit difficult to follow, though Maclean does a good job of reminding us of the job and character of each person as they are mentioned.
A well written book, with added interest to me because the author commissioned me to make two quilts for the family summer cabin, which is local. He initially wanted fire themed quilts. I told him that fire themed fabric would be difficult to find and perhaps uncomfortable to sleep under. He chose prints with fishing flies, perhaps a nod to his dad's famous book, "A River Runs Through It."

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read a few of John Maclean's books and this showed the same quality of writing and research. Maclean's work illustrated what I've read in other books about catastrophe industrial failure, that the catastrophe is rarely one huge horrific event, but a series of small mistakes that leads inevitably to the catastrophic situation. Breaking that chain of mistakes at any point would have avoided the tragic outcome.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was a little skeptical in the beginning as I was put off by one of the descriptions of one victim that the author kept repeating. Upon reflection I realized that this word was possibly not the author’s choice but a word used by friends and family during the interviews he conducted for this book. Otherwise I found Maclean’s depiction and analysis of this tragedy to be an educational and somber read.

[Lynette Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love all of Maclean's books about local wildfires. Each book often traces the origins of a fire start, then work day by day as crews respond, often detailing what happened that either could have been prevented, or what could not. Each book ends with the lessons learned and how this will be applied to make wildland fire fighting safter.

[Brice Fuqua · Rating 4 out of 5]

The dramatic story of a forest fire in a remote Washington state canyon that ended up taking the lives of four, young firefighters. John Maclean does not have the poetic language of his father, but he writes this tragic tale in clear, fast-moving prose.

[bob teeden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent Read

I thought the book was excellent. I read about the Mann Gulch fire, the storm king fire and a book about smoke Jumpers.
Much is owed to the Brave people who do this job and to John Maclean who explained it all in his book without prejudice.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well written chronicle of a wildfire that blew out of control. Four fire fighters died. Many mistakes were made by Forest Service fire managers. A complicated investigation followed that is just as interesting as the fire itself.

[Elizabeth Maxwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great

[Dustin Champlain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read

A great story and much to learn if you are a wild land Firefighter. Great research by the author!! Read it

[Connie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sad! Everything that could go wrong..did. Little accountability and blaming the victims. This book sheds light on the ones who are drawn to firefighting and the dangers of that career. Told in such a way as to appeal to firefighters and civilians with no over-dramatic effect.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

A learning experience in fire science. Two things that I got out of it, were that if there is a fire in the area, look at a map of the roads. Much easier now with GPS than in 2001. The other thing, living in a mountain wilderness area, is that rock slide areas, boulders do not create a safe fire shelter. Sandy beach might be better. Pretty much, everything is bad, during a wildfire. This was one of those situations that led to people asking themselves, if the fire was important enough to send young humans into, to fight, in harms way.

[John Branney · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a new volunteer firefighter and fellow author, I really enjoyed reading this book. I also read this author's book Fire on the Mountain and found both of these books well researched and written. The book flows like an excellent piece of fiction, although this fire happened and the agony for the survivors and victims' families and friends is vividly real.

I just hope authorities catch the people who started this tragic fire and bring them to justice.

Great writer. I recommend this book. Two thumbs up.

[Todd · Rating 1 out of 5]

A poor effort. After gathering facts and information for 6 years, a professional writer should be able to find the capital of Washington on a map (if they never learned it in the 3rd grade). Additional information was also inaccurate, such as the extent of Jason's injuries and positions held in the Forest Service since the accident.

[Miranda Schmitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

His timelines and presentation of facts are usually solid. His narratives are supremely dramatic more often than not.
I understand that he is trying to help the general public relate to the firefighters involved in this unfortunate debacle but he does so in a way that demeans women in wildland fire and overdramatizes these victim's lives.

Stick to the facts bucko.

[Audrey K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW! I had already read Norman Maclean's YOUNG MEN AND FIRE, and thought it excellent. This book by John N. Maclean (Norman's son) is very well written, and tells the story of the 2001 Thirtymile Fire in Washington (state) in the North Cascade Mountains. I am SO not the stuff of the men and women who choose to be firefighters, but I am grateful to all who accept that calling.

[Icicle4 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very frustrating read about a fire not far from where we live. This fire had a really long error chain. A large number of basic rules for fighting wildfires were not followed. The author is the son of Norman Maclean (Young Men and Fire). This book is not a literary read like "Young Men and Fire", but is very well written all the same.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as good as Fire on the Mountain, but still a well researched book that shows how poor leadership and other mistakes led to the deaths of 4 young firefighters at the 2001 Washington state Thirtymile Fire. Includes an excellent examination of the seriously flawed investigation of the tragedy as well.

[Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

An investigative look into the tragedy that took the lives of 4 fire fighters in Northern Washington. McLean does a good job of personalizing the story and bringing in all angles of investigation and issues. Another instance of not learning from our past.

[Sheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gripping. And nauseating, all at the same time.

An interesting read. Hard to put down, but I had the need to put it down and walk outside for some fresh air. More than once.

Interesting review of a real tragedy, too close to home.