Decker Fire Entrapment Fatalities 1959

The Decker Fire started on August 8, 1959, from a vehicle accident that killed a civilian motorist and injured another on a mountain highway on the Cleveland National Forest in Southern California. Upon discovery, resources from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) and the US Forest Service, including engines, a hand crew, and a hotshot crew, responded to initial attack the fire. An engine crew responding to the fire was caught in a flare-up, with 6 firefighters receiving burns. Shortly after this, a hand crew in an open-backed truck was impacted by a large firewhirl, burning 3 firefighters, one very seriously. Elsewhere, the hotshot crew was constructing fireline downhill operation below the road, until fire behavior prompted them to come back up to the road and fire out the area instead, with the intention of connecting the firing operation to black from a fire that had occurred weeks earlier. A wind shift pushed the main fire and burnout upslope, merging them into an intense fire that impacted the roadway. Hotshots and engine crewmembers on the road ran to escape the flame front. All burned firefighters from the three entrapments were brought to hospitals, where in the coming weeks, 6 perished from their injuries. 

Those lost on the Decker Fire were: Andrew "Rusty" Brooks, Boyd Edwards, John Guthrie, Nelson Harlan, Stephen Johnson, and Durward "Ben" Slater. 

Burn Injury, Multi Incident Summary, Entrapment, Medevac, Fatality, Initial Attack, Entrapment