Federal investigation details how ‘unfathomable’ wildfire behavior and region-wide ‘chaos’ contributed to fatal burnover incident in western Colorado

Nine seconds. That’s the amount of time that wildland firefighters battling the Knowles Fire in western Colorado this summer had to transition between realizing a helicopter wouldn’t be able to land and deploying shelters, according to a report from the U.S. Department of the Interior. Four of the five wildland firefighters, all of whom were members of the Rifle Helitack crew, died as a result of the June 27 burnover event. Emily Barker, Nick Hutcherson and Sydney Watson died at the scene, the report states. Nathan Matthews died of his injuries about a month after the incident. Barker and Matthews were members of the Eagle County community. “The rapid nature of the transition between the idea of being picked up by a helicopter to deploying fire shelters is exceptionally noteworthy,” states the serious incident investigation from the U.S. Department of the Interior. The federal government published the 95-page report detailing the joint investigation from the new U.S.

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