Vehicles vs. Sleepers in Fire Camp

Sometime after midnight on August 4, 2024, a driver in a pickup truck entered the Paulina Spike Camp on the Crazy Creek Fire in eastern Oregon. They drove slowly down a gravel road in the dark towards a group of tents and parked vehicles. Seeking a place to sleep and not wanting to disturb people in the tents further out in the field, the driver switched off their headlights and drove into a grassy area, towards the collection of parked vehicles. Suddenly there was screaming, and firefighters standing and screaming, waving their arms yelling “Stop!” The driver had run someone over.

Map showing the road the pickup's route of travel, a flag line in pink, the tents, and the accident site.

The view from the road to the parked vehicles, with tents off to the left. The accident occurred in the grass in front of the two standing firefighters.

Camp layout is an important aspect of incident management – some things just don’t go well together, like a fueling area and feeding area, for instance, or critically, sleeping areas and roadways. Well-marked sleeping areas delineated and separated from travel routes in camp help keep accidents like this from happening.

Crazy Creek wasn’t the first time a vehicle vs. sleeping firefighter accident has happened. Back in 2009 on the Silver Fire, a sleeping crewmember was struck not once but twice by a gray water truck at Plumas County Fairgrounds in Quincy, California.

Photo after the Silver Fire accident showing the gray water truck and the sleeping bag in its location when the accident occurred.

In both of these situations, the injured individuals survived.

Read up on these two incidents and think them through from the point of view of all involved: How can a sleeping firefighter ensure they aren’t run over, especially if they aren’t in a tent and may blend into the grass in low light conditions? As a driver, how can you ensure you never drive into sleeping areas? As an IMT member, how can you keep camp operations safe, especially when operational tempo is high and resources are flooding into new camps?

To see the complete reports on the Crazy Creek Fire and Silver Fire incidents:

Crazy Creek Run Over by Vehicle 2024

Silver Fire Run Over by Vehicle 2009