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[The 2024 Summer Issue of Two More Chains focused on leadership and highlighted incidents in which firefighters who weren’t “in charge” suddenly needed to make leadership decisions and take action.

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.

[Editor's Note: This piece was recently featured in wildlandfirefighter.com and is a guest post from Bobbie Scopa.]

A family of 7 (two adults and five children) plus three dogs hike into a mountain lake to camp. A fire starts in the area. They no longer have a way out.

On Tuesday, September 3, 2019, local government fire personnel were conducting a hoselay near the head of the Country Fire near Cool, California. Shortly after starting the hoselay, fire conditions intensified.

The initial blowup on the Mustang Fire. This fire went from being one difficult to locate due to limited smoke and fire activity, to one that caused firefighters to drop their packs and flee.

By C. M. DeHart [C. M. DeHart (NFPA Fire Instructor I) worked as a squad boss and fireline EMT with the U.S. Forest Service and currently serves as a Prevention Education Team Member and Public Information Officer.]

These are the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center staff members’ recommended incident reports from 2023—that appeared in the 2024 Winter Issue of Two More Chains.

By Travis DotsonAnalystWildland Fire Lessons Learned Center

This article originally appeared in the 2024 Winter Issue of Two More Chains. In 2023 the LLC recorded 12 separate entrapment events. These entrapments occurred in the following scenarios: