Mackenzie Fire Entrapment 1994

The Mackenzie fire located 40 miles SW of Kingman AZ was approximately 150 ac at 1300 on 6-1-94. The fire rapidly increased in size with rates of spread exceeding 50 chains/hr in the Desert Brush Fuel Model 4. Temperatures were near 100 degrees with RH in the single digits. The deployment of shelters occurred at approximately 1400 hrs in a granite boulder field at the base of a very steep slope in a dense brush filled shallow drainage. The boulder field was made up of 8 to 15 foot diameter round granite rocks that had numerous horizontal and vertical crevices from 1 to 10 feet wide. It was within the crevices that three members of a hotshot crew deployed their fire shelters on the ground and on the boulders themselves.