Cataloging Information
Human Factors of Firefighter Safety
Organizational Culture & Identity
This article is a detailed reconstruction of firefighter behavior and personal protective equipment use on the South Canyon Fire. Putnam reveals two failures that contributed to the deaths of 14 firefighters. First, many firefighters held onto their tools and packs during the escape effort. This slowed them down and prevented many of the firefighters from escaping. Second, fire shelters were improperly deployed, lost after deployment due to turbulent wind conditions and hot gasses preceding the flames, or not deploye at all. Putnam makes several recommendations to prevent these conditions from recurring on future fires. First, firefighters must be trained in such a way as to resist the urge to carry tools when running from a life threatening fire. They must also be trained in proper shelter storage, deployment , and use through mandatory fire shelter training courses and mandatory refresher courses (from Larson et al. 2007, p.9).