Hauser Creek Fire Entrapment Fatalities 1943

On October 2, 1943, a fire lookout tower reported the Hauser Creek Fire on the Cleveland National Forest, California. Initial attack resources included numerous Forest Service firefighters along with 200 US Marines. A group of 90 Marines were tasked with improving a wide strip in a gulch bottom to use as control line for a firing operation. An additional 15 to 20 Marines were tasked with patrolling a nearby road. A sudden wind shift pushed the fire across the gulch, entrapping men in the gulch above the slopover. The majority of the men tried to use the large boulders in the gulch as heat shields from the burning brush, while a small number of others ran to escape through the flaming front. Three Marines perished in the entrapment, while 4 more succumbed to critical burn injuries the following day. An additional 70 men were burned, some seriously, in the entrapment. 

Those US Marines lost on the Hauser Creek Fire were: Roger Kirkpatrick, Ralph Peters, Wilbur Rossen, Norman Shook, Ishmael Wesson, Lowell Whetsel, and Elmer Winkelman. 

Burn Injury, Initial Attack, Fatality, Entrapment