Please begin Chapter IX of the Yarnell Hill Fire discussion here. Once again, do not include more than one link in your comment in order to avoid the spam folder. Thank you, John
Chapter I, Chapter II, Chapter II supplement, Chapter III, Chapter IV, Chapter V, Chapter VI, Chapter VII and Chapter VIII.
© Copyright 2014 John Dougherty, All rights Reserved. Written For: Investigative MEDIA
Joy and I attended the Yarnell Fire Board Group and are just back. It seems they were more intent on enforcing something that can not be legally enforced concerning state trespass laws than they are creating defensable space, looking at concerns regarding the loss of 40 lives since the fire and finding out what the circumstances really were that led up to the 19 GMHS deaths.
A number of Joy’s friends showed up to witness in case we got arrested–it did not happen. Even her husband was there to make bond if needed. The young fire chief stated he was only trying to comply with orders from upstairs, but he did not know that Joy had photographed many people that were on those state lands without legal passes, therefore breaking the law. Ignorance of the law is no excuse these days eventhough there are 64000 and more on the books. But boys enforcing the law need to get them all down so they can deliver the facts to us hikers. Well it turns out Joy educated many of those that she had in the photo when they later wanted to hike with us–almost to a person they did not know that they had to have a pass to walk on their own public lands. Yes a $15 senior pass or $20 regular pass will get you on with us–we want to keep you out of jail and the exorbitant fine for that awful crime of walking on state or federal lands without giving the mordida (bite) as they call it in Mexico. Some think it is akin to a robber holding a gun on you so you can walk out there. The state will do that for you as well if you are not happy with their fee.
I did get in a thing about the 40 dying and so first did Joy. I was able to let the board know that 83%of that LC95A slurry fire retardant is ammonia nitrate that gives off a lung tissue killing gas and that 8% is chemicals that we have yet to know due to trade secret. I suggested that since they should have the clout to gain this information, and seeing that they are a fire board concerned with fire things including firemen’s health they ought to find out. Also factor in 40 deaths now since the fire in this little community, would it not be a good idea to contact EPA or the health bureaus to investigate the possible escalation in deaths to older citizens. One lady was very interested on the board and did write this down. Maybe it will help somebody–seeing the 6 page information report on LC95A states it has never been tested on animals or humans as to its effect on health. They just assume it is good stuff and the gasses and chemicals emitted by the drops are benign. Sounds like the same shit we heard when i was a uranium miner–low grade uranium does no harm–yet you can get a consolation prize for being a uranium miner for over 4 quarters of a hundred and fifity grand. It takes one of specific cancers, COPD, and other diseases to get it and up to ten years for approval so hopefully you can hang on against the disease until you get it. Most haven’t and those old miners i knew were mostly gone long ago from one cancer or another. Maybe these firemen need to know now what they breath, so they can have some chance of future retribution–if indeed as i belive they are–breathing dangerous chemicals.
Now back to the fire–Joy did post some more new photos a few days ago. What I saw looked like would be more help in resolving things.
The Discovery Channel guy did contact Joy just before we left–wanted her to report back on how it went at the fire board. Well I did not see much excitement there, but can bet they will lay off Joy after she laid out about six pages of maps, regulations and facts about how the law must be followed not only by us but by those that exercise the law as well.
It is amazing all this to me–I do admire you people here and how well you have been exposing these bumblers of the Yarnell fire.
I have to admit I did ask the FBI to step in and had presented a pretty good argument (at least in my own opinion) as to why they should. It took a long email to the Phoenix office–and one of the things i covered is the obvious cover up and omission of such things as that Bambi and Copter able to stop the fire or at least slow it for oncoming fire fighters that was told by the Honcho to stay put. Such things seem strange to me–also that a photo of two atv’s on the mountain right at the fire on Friday is in the hands of certain individuals–yet no investigator has ever bothered to contact those people with the photo or even ask who it is that has those photo’s.
Did Joy’s discovery of that bambi/copter photo and the fact that certain firemen on the job hear on radio that bosses told the copter pilots to stand down on Saturday morning piss someone off? Marti and Wants to Know the Truth dissected those photos as to what they were as well as time and date and location. The idea is that someone does not want the truth and nothing but the truth out and in my way of thinking only outside investigators will be able to get closure and satisfaction to the loved ones. There are lots of children out there without fathers now, mothers and dads without their sons. There are plenty of friends saddened by this tragedy So no matter how lightly those dissenters to outside investigators might be, this investigation will go on and no amount of harassment or intimidation will stop athose of us who whittle at the veil of whitewash we hve been fed.
John started Chapter X last night
Cool.
Packing my bags right now.
The direct ‘jump link’ to the new Chapter X ( TEN ) is as follows…
http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-x/
**
** EXIF METADATA CONTAINED IN THE FILES RECEIVED BY INVESTIGATIVE MEDIA
The bad news: There are definitely TWO different video cameras involved but they both seem to be ‘older’ devices and there doesn’t seem to be any actual DEVICE information in the EXIF data that would specifically identify them.
The good news: There is ENOUGH data there to figure it out what devices they really were.
Also some more bad news… the first three videos have some TIMESTAMP information in them… but the more important ‘Helmet Cam’ videos do NOT.
** THE FIRST THREE VIDEOS
The following piece of EXIF data actually dates the camera.
This version C.S0050-0 V1.0 of the 3GP video format dates back to 2003…
Major Brand: 3GPP2 Media (.3G2) compliant with 3GPP2 C.S0050-0 V1.0
The following field seems to verify the AGE of this device as circa 2003 since it ONLY lists a 3GPP ‘compatibility’ mode with the older V1.0 version. If it was a more modern 3GPP capable device it would be listing additional ‘Compatible Brands’ like ‘3g2b’ and ‘3g2c’. ( in addition to the early 3g2a version )…
Compatible Brands: 3g2a
There is a ‘Current Time’ data field in this version of 3GPP, but as you well see below… either this device wasn’t updating it or that time-stamping feature for videos had been turned OFF.
** FILENAMES TAMPERED WITH?
Something really strange is going on with the ‘Media Create Dates’ versus the filenames that are appearing for these 3 files.
Here are the actual ‘Media Create Date’ timestamps embedded in these files… and the length of time BETWEEN them…
‘Create Date’ field for 0630131532.3g2
Media Create Date: 2013:06:30 22:32:34
‘Create Date’ field for 0630131533.3g2
Media Create Date: 2013:06:30 22:33:46 ( +66 seconds )
‘Create Date’ field for 0630131534.3g2
Media Create Date: 2013:06:30 22:35:07 ( +81 seconds )
This timestamp information does NOT match a possible device file naming sequence of…
0630131532.3g2
0630131533.3g2
0630131534.3g2
According to the device clock… it was 22:32:34 when the first video was ‘created’ ( 10:32:34 PM ).
We certainly know it wasn’t 10 PM in the evening… but even then the ‘minute sequence’ is off from reality.
The ‘minute value’ for the first two files matches ( 32 and 33 )… but according to the device itself the third filename should have had a ’35’ minute value instead of ’34’.
It’s late in the evening here.
More about all this later.
Here are some EXIF data ‘dumps’ from the files in the Dropbox…
** EXIF metadata contained in 0630131532.3g2
File Name: 0630131532.3g2
File Type: 3G2
MIME Type: video/3gpp2
Major Brand: 3GPP2 Media (.3G2) compliant with 3GPP2 C.S0050-0 V1.0
Minor Version: 0.0.0
Compatible Brands: 3g2a
Movie Data Size: 407900
Movie Data Offset: 28
Movie Header Version: 0
Create Date: 2013:06:30 22:32:34
Modify Date: 2013:06:30 22:32:34
Time Scale: 1000
Duration: 29.80 s
Preferred Rate: 1
Preferred Volume: 100.00%
Preview Time: 0 s
Preview Duration: 0 s
Poster Time: 0 s
Selection Time: 0 s
Selection Duration: 0 s
Current Time: 0 s
Next Track ID: 3
Track Header Version: 0
Track Create Date: 2013:06:30 22:32:34
Track Modify Date: 2013:06:30 22:32:34
Track ID: 1
Track Duration: 29.80 s
Track Layer: 0
Track Volume: 0.00%
Image Width: 176
Image Height: 144
Graphics Mode: srcCopy
Op Color: 0 0 0
Compressor ID: mp4v
Source Image Width: 176
Source Image Height: 144
X Resolution: 72
Y Resolution: 72
Bit Depth: 24
Video Frame Rate: 15
Matrix Structure: 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
Media Header Version: 0
Media Create Date: 2013:06:30 22:32:34
Media Modify Date: 2013:06:30 22:32:34
Media Time Scale: 8000
Media Duration: 29.80 s
Handler Type: Audio Track
Handler Description: soun
Balance: 0
Audio Format: mp4a
Audio Channels: 2
Audio Bits Per Sample: 16
Audio Sample Rate: 8000
Avg Bitrate: 110 kbps
Image Size: 176×144
Rotation: 0
** EXIF metadata contained in 0630131533.3g2
File Name: 0630131533.3g2
File Type: 3G2
MIME Type: video/3gpp2
Major Brand: 3GPP2 Media (.3G2) compliant with 3GPP2 C.S0050-0 V1.0
Minor Version: 0.0.0
Compatible Brands: 3g2a
Movie Data Size: 411029
Movie Data Offset: 28
Movie Header Version: 0
Create Date: 2013:06:30 22:33:46
Modify Date: 2013:06:30 22:33:46
Time Scale: 1000
Duration: 29.92 s
Preferred Rate: 1
Preferred Volume: 100.00%
Preview Time: 0 s
Preview Duration: 0 s
Poster Time: 0 s
Selection Time: 0 s
Selection Duration: 0 s
Current Time: 0 s
Next Track ID: 3
Track Header Version: 0
Track Create Date: 2013:06:30 22:33:46
Track Modify Date: 2013:06:30 22:33:46
Track ID: 1
Track Duration: 29.87 s
Track Layer: 0
Track Volume: 0.00%
Image Width: 176
Image Height: 144
Graphics Mode: srcCopy
Op Color: 0 0 0
Compressor ID: mp4v
Source Image Width: 176
Source Image Height: 144
X Resolution: 72
Y Resolution: 72
Bit Depth: 24
Video Frame Rate: 15
Matrix Structure: 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
Media Header Version: 0
Media Create Date: 2013:06:30 22:33:46
Media Modify Date: 2013:06:30 22:33:46
Media Time Scale: 8000
Media Duration: 29.92 s
Handler Type: Audio Track
Handler Description: soun
Balance: 0
Audio Format: mp4a
Audio Channels: 2
Audio Bits Per Sample: 16
Audio Sample Rate: 8000
Avg Bitrate: 110 kbps
Image Size: 176×144
Rotation: 0
** EXIF metadata contained in 0630131534.3g2
File Name: 0630131534.3g2
File Size: 400 kB
File Type: 3G2
MIME Type: video/3gpp2
Major Brand: 3GPP2 Media (.3G2) compliant with 3GPP2 C.S0050-0 V1.0
Minor Version: 0.0.0
Compatible Brands: 3g2a
Movie Data Size: 406487
Movie Data Offset: 28
Movie Header Version: 0
Create Date: 2013:06:30 22:35:07
Modify Date: 2013:06:30 22:35:07
Time Scale: 1000
Duration: 29.73 s
Preferred Rate: 1
Preferred Volume: 100.00%
Preview Time: 0 s
Preview Duration: 0 s
Poster Time: 0 s
Selection Time: 0 s
Selection Duration: 0 s
Current Time: 0 s
Next Track ID: 3
Track Header Version: 0
Track Create Date: 2013:06:30 22:35:07
Track Modify Date: 2013:06:30 22:35:07
Track ID: 1
Track Duration: 29.73 s
Track Layer: 0
Track Volume: 0.00%
Image Width: 176
Image Height: 144
Graphics Mode: srcCopy
Op Color: 0 0 0
Compressor ID: mp4v
Source Image Width: 176
Source Image Height: 144
X Resolution: 72
Y Resolution: 72
Bit Depth: 24
Video Frame Rate: 15
Matrix Structure: 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
Media Header Version: 0
Media Create Date: 2013:06:30 22:35:07
Media Modify Date: 2013:06:30 22:35:07
Media Time Scale: 8000
Media Duration: 29.72 s
Handler Type: Audio Track
Handler Description: soun
Balance: 0
Audio Format: mp4a
Audio Channels: 2
Audio Bits Per Sample: 16
Audio Sample Rate: 8000
Avg Bitrate: 109 kbps
Image Size: 176×144
Rotation: 0
** THE HELMET CAM VIDEOS ( The M2Uxxxxx.MPG files )
Now that we know the ACTUAL ( original ) file extension for the M2Uxxxxx files was .MPG ( and not .MP4 ) that pretty much proves Hulburd’s ‘Helmet Camera’ had to be some kind of SONY based device.
Perhaps an older Sony HandyCam or Sony MiniCam.
There really isn’t much information there on initial inspection… but there *might* be more.
Stay tuned.
** EXIF metadata contained in M2U00269.MPG
File Name: M2U00269.MPG
File Size: 14 MB
File Type: MPEG
MIME Type: video/mpeg
MPEG Audio Version: 1
Audio Layer: 1
Audio Bitrate: 160 kbps
Sample Rate: 44100
Channel Mode: Joint Stereo
Mode Extension: Bands 4-31
Copyright Flag: True
Original Media: True
Emphasis: CCIT J.17
Image Width: 720
Image Height: 480
Aspect Ratio: 16:9, 625 line, PAL
Frame Rate: 29.97 fps
Video Bitrate: 9.1 Mbps
Duration: 12.91 s (approx)
Image Size: 720×480
** EXIF metadata contained in M2U00268.MPG
File Name: M2U00268.MPG
File Size: 41 MB
File Type: MPEG
MIME Type: video/mpeg
MPEG Audio Version: 1
Audio Layer: 1
Audio Bitrate: 160 kbps
Sample Rate: 44100
Channel Mode: Joint Stereo
Mode Extension: Bands 4-31
Copyright Flag: True
Original Media: True
Emphasis: CCIT J.17
Image Width: 720
Image Height: 480
Aspect Ratio: 16:9, 625 line, PAL
Frame Rate: 29.97 fps
Video Bitrate: 9.1 Mbps
Duration: 0:00:36 (approx)
Image Size: 720×480
Hmmm
Maybe start here:
Sony – Cyber-Shot Shock+Waterproof Camera Orange+32GB+Helmet+Handlebar Mounts+Batt+Case+Flex Tripod+Acc Kit – Orange
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/sony-cyber-shot-shock-waterproof-camera-orange-32gb-helmet-handlebar-mounts-batt-case-flex-tripod-acc-kit-orange/1311290807.p?id=mp1311290807&skuId=1311290807
Their “action cams” don’t zoom.
But this one does. And it’s optical zoom. And Sony uses Carl Zeiss lenses. The very best. That would explain what I was seeing in the first M2U video.
But no remote. He would have had to operate this by hand.
Just looked at 69. It’s the same length as the YouTube version.
More videos have been uploaded now.
Thanks, JD!!
OK, back to bed. I just got up bcuz of a sneezing attack.
Thanks, WTKTT!
Hmmm.
That 2003 GP3 really is a stumper.
I thought GP3 was associated with GoPros. Guess not.
Correction It’s 3GP
Big learning curve for me here.
Maybe it IS a flip cellphone?
Marti digs back thru the cobwebs in her mind to try to even remember what her first cellphone was (it didn’t take pictures) after learning that 3GP didn’t start with GroPros, but with 3G networks.
2002
“Nokia 7650
This was the first Nokia set to feature a built-in camera and was featured in the movie Minority Report.”
From “THE EVOLUTION OF CELL PHONE DESIGN BETWEEN 1983-2009”
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/05/the-evolution-of-cell-phone-design-between-1983-2009/
OK Now I REALLY need to go back to bed.
So Aaron was, possibly, actually shooting with an antique cellphone?
(This, if in fact it is the case, in no way substantiates what our counselor said about how fire fighter crews use old cellphones because they can’t afford anything newer. ) I’ve seen WAY too many firefighter videos to believe that.)
Confession.
My Melita Drip Coffee Maker/Carafe is over 27 years old.
I wouldn’t even think of using anything else.
**
** What InvestigativeMEDIA actually received from the US Forestry Service
IM has just now posted a link to exact copies of what it actually received from the US Forestry Service in response to the original FOIA request for ‘Prescott National Forest’ employee video(s).
The new IM article about this is here…
InvestigativeMEDIA posts first set of Forest Service videos
November 17, 2014 By John Dougherty
http://www.investigativemedia.com/investigativemedia-posts-first-set-of-forest-service-videos/
The direct link to the online Dropbox that contains the 12 videos ( out of a total of 21 ) that have been uploaded so far is as follows…
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ipv8to6ih7gmzbq/AAC82U3UuheEtc8GPHFn91vea?dl=0
The uploading is ongoing and not yet completed… but there are at least 12 complete videos already in the Dropbox… including the first THREE of the burnout operation up on Model Creek Road.
Thanks!
There’s a bunch more there now.
When I heard the statement who “knew” the men “the answers died with the 19″…it just stuck to me…
I say to anyone who thinks all the answers died with them.
PLAY GOD. PAY THE PRICE.
SOME of ‘the answers’ probably did… but certainly not ALL… as the United States Forestry Service, Arizona Forestry, and officials/employees of the City of Prescott would like us to believe.
Even just 9 days ago… the United States Forestry Service and Arizona Forestry proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they have ALWAYS been ‘withholding’ crucial evidence about what really happened that day from both the families of the poor men who lost their lives AND from the people charged ( by law ) with officially investigating this tragic incident.
You have to wonder, then… what else is still being ‘withheld’… and what ‘answers’ lie ahead?
Recently Bob Powers used 2 words that struck me “STRICK CONFIDENCE” and when we began the hikes we explained ANYONE reaching out to us from June 30 2013 until January 2014 that anything they said to us would not be kept in strick confidence because I just did not want to juggle who said what and what not to say since we were bombarded by so many avenues from locals to firefighting/smokejumper community to investigators/media/radio/djs/authors/journalists to loved ones of the GMHS to total strangers to retired military/cia/federal folks to meteorologists to botanists to high up command current and retired of wildland fire community to fire wardens current and retired to state and city and county officials again current and retired so our list is very very lengthy of incoming communications. I have some information and I can only state that at this date but remember this date because when it comes out I just want everyone to know how God has guided this all and boy do I wish I can share even the tiniest detail yet all I can say it is in regards to who God shared to us without us even looking and how it is still amazes me how God’s time is slower than I would of thought on the topic of the YHF when there is still living beings that were on that fire and homeowners that if they just shared their accounts and footage…I finally learned to trust the One who knows all things and accept that some questions may never be answered. I just hope in this YHF; we witness from seed-time to HARVEST. I can share this week a local asked me HOW COME I never posted on here about the flair a homeowner saw at 4:35pm from the area of the Helm’s (THE BOX CANYON) and the homeowner did not know how come it was never mentioned in the SAIR and I explained it was a solo account said in front of other locals but to this date I have not yet heard another account so I never posted about it because I work on some how trailing back to source/footage. I will not say something on JD’s page unless it is what it is…I think of the children in all this and as they grow or currently old enough and read this that I am saying all I can for the fatherless. I know it is OFF TRACK but the whales do not have a voice but there are current strong activists saving the whales from poachers so I just am trying to keep checking every possible area we can and really I did not get local’s cd yet but did learn one is on vacation for 2 weeks with her daughter and my hopes is the Holidays does not envelop her time and have to wait for the new year. Yet it will cover the areas of Model Creek Road/Monica Mine and mountain top views. Also John last night at Barb’s now knows what we are looking for and he will get the word out. I passed out today so I am online to order some labs. I had a forehead blood gusher and I have no clue how long I was out. I am feeling woozy. Today they are having MEET THE ARTIST at the Yarnell Library with Chuck Tidey and his art. Surrounded by many folks are the MOVE ON JOY/LET THE FIRE AND MEN GO…you would think if a certain GMHS loved one had her hand in their ideas nowadays—either way Bob Powers is right. I did tell everyone if you tell me something let it be something I can repeat but I do know certain current firefighter community are not in fear of their career as much as they fear the change that may happen from them coming forward because it may not just affect their career but too many…I gotta go. Head hurts. Sonny is typing away and I printed my labs and ordering more so some time I hope to look more into this page yet I do SUPPORT a new chapter!
I happened to peruse the info on a GoPro package while in the store yesterday, and while that particular device will not zoom, it will go from wide view to narrow view, which under certain conditions could sort of mimic a zoom.
I took a quick look through some of the videos to see if I could find any zooming going on, and I didn’t see any in the places I looked. If any of you are familiar with the locations of any zooms, you might want to double check to make sure the camera wasn’t just going from wide to narrow, or vice versa.
Thanks! Good catch! Will look!
I DID look for zooming, and found it.
Will go back and look to see if it’s zooming or “shifting”
Just going from “wide” to “narrow” wouldn’t change the focal length or the appearance of that. Maybe it’s like a digital zoom where it crops the whole frame, which is what cellphones do. making it look like a zoom.
To make a cellphone really zoom, you have to get an additional lens. Making and selling those has been quite a cottage industry.
OK. I looked at M2U00261.
He’s definitely zoomng in and out. It’s a gradual thing, zooming in and out..
http://youtu.be/41IHV2FE5CE?list=PLTErVrHH6uJja-ljtn7z9Q5Sz9WtCPGw1
You are correct, no question about it in this video. THX!
Thank you, Marti.
I would say that pretty much rules out a ‘smartphone’ device as well.
Not to worry… we are GOING to find out what camera(s) Hulburd was using and what the FULL story is on this latest ‘evidence dump’ from USFS.
One step at a time… swings of the axe.
So I just looked at the video again.
The zoom is very smooth and the resolution also seems quite good. And he’s really pushing it.
Looks more like optical zoom than digital zoom.
I haven’t youtubed to look at the Drift cameras. I think I will tonight.
And it’s also really quiet.
Ugh. Watching these videos about the drift is making me salivate.
Unfortunately, i’ve now looked at lots of Drift videos, and so far the zoom is not really used a lot. They’re mostly featuring lots of other things in which the zoom function isn’t really used.
Remember, you wrote on October 19, 2014 at 11:58 PM:
“Something tells me the already scheduled November 17 ‘ADOSH findings challenge review’ might play into the timing here.”
Welcome to today, everybody!!
BrainMistake Alert
It was WTKTT who wrote that, not TTWARE.
The important thing is:
It’s TODAY.
There actually is no regularly scheduled AOSHA (public) meeting for today.
We’ve never been quite where even Mr. Dougherty got that date but I’m also sure Mr. Dougherty has many contacts he trusts there in Arizona.
As per the following ADOSH link…
http://www.ica.state.az.us/Commissioners/COMM_agendas_page.aspx
…the LAST public meeting was November 13… and the NEXT scheduled public meeting is November 20.
The ‘minutes’ for the last November 13 meeting have not been published yet, but I would imagine if any decision was made at that meeting we have heard about by now.
It’s going to be an MSM ( Mainstream Media ) event, no matter what the decision is.
I am ASSUMING that this consideration about whether they should even consent to a review of their previous findings will show up on the agenda for one of their public meetings… because that’s what normally happens.
This certainly isn’t the first time ADOSH has issued fines against an Arizona employer and they have ‘contested’ them and requested a ‘review of the findings’.
There are plenty of OTHER past ‘minutes’ records for ADOSH where they discussed such ‘review requests’ in an open and transparent manner.
I do NOT know how ADOSH plans on handling this one.
It MIGHT all be ‘under the covers’ instead of in the ‘public’ agenda or minutes, like they have done in the past.
We shall see.
I believe the ADOSH findings will ultimately stand… exactly the way Marshall Krotenberg and his staff published them in the first place.
That was a ‘seriously screwed up’ workplace that entire weekend.
I’m sure AZCentral has their antennae turned on.
The Administrative Law Judge has rescheduled the hearing (Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health of The Industrial Commission of Arizona vs. Arizona State Forestry Division/State of Arizona) related to the Yarnell Hill Fire to July 8, 2015 at 9:30 a.m.
Wow.
Thank you, John.
Was any REASON given why someone thinks they now need another NINE MONTHS for this?
I also wonder who REQUESTED such a long extension.
Arizona Forestry?… or ADOSH?
This is itself newsworthy.
And I think the public has a right to know what’s going on here.
I doubt that Mr. Dougherty is making up the following ‘mouthful’…
(Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health of The Industrial Commission of Arizona vs. Arizona State Forestry Division/State of Arizona)
Sounds very much like the (full) official title of a duly filed court document.
I can find no such case filing in any law system I have access to, and no recent announcements about this rescheduling anywhere on the InterWeb.
Lazer head-cam camcorder”
“1st Lazer camcorder head-cam on youtube”
Published on Feb 12, 2013
“This is the first Lazer head-cam camcorder on youtube includes a Macro Zoom lens
“for close up”.Lazer and Zoom 1:15,Macro mode 1:35. The camera has a red lazer pointer to help you stay in frame with your subject when filming from head-cam.Camera has 8x Zoom and optical lens for macro mode
New Optical lens offers a higher performance lens than that of the Gopro’s lens”
http://youtu.be/-qMIbgLw4oo
I can’t really find anything about this camera on the google, other than this video, so I’m thinking he may be spelling/naming something incorrectly.
The big diff between this cam and the Drift cams is that this one has optical zoom rather than digital zoom, which the Drift cams use.
I haven’t had time to go back and really look at the videos to see if I can tell which type of zoom is in them. Digital zoom is really just cropping, so you lose resolution. Optical would keep the resolution and thus have better image quality.
Gotta go get some other stuff done. So have at it!
I just wanted to get a bead on about what cams are out there that have the features Aaron seems to be using.
Drift Innovation HD170 Stealth Action Camera with HD Recording, 4x Digital Zoom and 1.5-Inch LCD Screen (Black)
RF remote turns camera on and off while on your helmet or outside your vehicle. Saves batteries, memory and edit time
Night mode for optimal low-light performance. Digital 4X zoom
Ability to shoot in 60 frames per second for buttery smooth, professional quality slow motion video
The Drift HD170 Stealth is the worlds first sports action camera which films in full 1080p HD and has a built-in playback LCD screen and remote control. This rugged water resistant camera is the first camera that gives people what they want from an Action Camera.
Maximum Video Resolution: 1080p High Definition
SD Memory Capacity: up to 32GB
Digital Zoom: Digital x4 (in 720p/30/60fps & WVGA mode)
Lens Angle: 170° Fully Rotatable Wide Angle Lens
LCD Screen: 1.5″ Colour TFT
Water Resistant
Remote Control: Wireless RF (5m range) Hands Free Video and Photo
Audio: Built-in Microphone & Speaker
Menus: User Friendly Control Panel in 15 Languages
http://www.amazon.com/Drift-Innovation-Stealth-Recording-1-5-Inch/dp/B004L5AF4Q
I think, after reading the customer reviews, I might be willing to bet dollars to donuts this is it.
The remote clinched it for me, in the end.
That’s the older model.
Here”s the new smaller lighter one. Looks like they fixed the problems the customer reviews on the older one were describing
Drift HD Camera
http://www.amazon.com/Drift-Definition-Helmet-Action-Camera/dp/B005H2RDK6/ref=dp_ob_title_ce
If I were into headcam video, I”d scarf this baby up today. It’s 42% off — $174.00
Also:
DRIFT HD GHOST-S DIGITAL VIDEO ACTION CAMERA CAMCORDER
http://www.amazon.com/GHOST-S-DIGITAL-ACTION-CAMERA-CAMCORDER/dp/B00GJRCPRO/ref=cm_cr_pr_pb_t
Great stuff, Marti.
BTW… I did an extensive search ( believe me, extensive ) online for ANY other videos that might have been posted out there ANYWHERE that could be associated with Aaron Hulburd.
I found nothing.
There were even other photos taken by Christopher MacKenzie that were sitting online that allowed us to pretty much identify his camera before we ever got to see the EXIF data from his June 30, 2013 photos…
…but in this case ( for Aaron Hulburd )… I don’t see anything else ‘sitting out there’.
I did too. Same results.
A lot of crews use their videos to post on youtube for various purposes.
Blue Ridge doesn’t. Apparently neither do these guys.
Aaron probably uses his footage for in-house educational stuff, not for fun or advertising or public education.
Lets all move on I for one would rather bring any small information to this investigation and put it out to find additional input,
Some of us here have valuable contacts with the Families, FS, BLM, and Arizona Wild land Fire Fighters.
Some of these very people have given us information in strict confidence. Those that attack that information are only chasing those people back into the closet. People that would or could come forward are left with apprehension that they will as well be attacked.
Yes both RTS and I have contacts in the Fire community RTS being in and still working with Arizona FF’s is much closer to information than any of us. Those that contact us are yes afraid of loosing there jobs.
The Info we both got was key to IM John requesting the Videos. Wow New Revolution—-
IM knew about the Videos because RTS and I were contacted and the information given.
We knew there would be some skepticism here. Joy and Sonny who both live in the area confirmed that people had reviewed some new video information. That was being passed around.
So the additional information both RTS and I have indicates there is more to the Videos than was released we herd that and some other info that this may not be the only Video with info on it.
Did the video get shown in its entirety?
Did the video only get shown to a select few?
Was the Video we got only a part of the whole?
Some of the information out there says that the last part of the video showing the deployment scene was requested to be removed before it was released.
Dose that tell you some one or ones reviewed the Videos prior to release?
There are a lot of unanswered questions still lurking in the mist.
Why were the Videos not shown to the Families and Lawyers before they were released?
I rest my case at this point and hope that some one out there will contact John Dougherty with
more information to break this wide open…………………..
Thanks to all who have given me confidential information know your Identities are still safe.
.
Exactly Bob–Too many are afraid of loosing their jobs for revealing what they know. Finding new evidence has been a slow going process because of those fears.
The last photos we gave out had to be in strict confidence for source. That person we gave appreciation to was happy that her photos may have helped. You see there are just too many cronies in this area with significant power over peoples lives to scare them. Still, Joy has been able to convince a few that their photos are important no matter how insignificant they are.
I thought there might be enough evidence out there to bring in a proper federal investigation but perhaps more is needed. Wouldn’t the deaths of 19 men beg for it considering the circumstances? Well we will continue searching for more.
A sad thing is that certain people with money and clout have a lot of information they do not share. Sharing on this forum expose the data to a multitude of savvy people and some with exceptional analytical skills. Joy in blowing up many of these photos had discovered some details that otherwise have been overlooked. She noticed that the initial count radioed in came to 18? That leaves questions as to whether another body was found later in another location away from the others. Of course the excuse will be that in the haste and excitement there was a miscount. Possible but considering all the other actions in this investigation we wonder.
Dr. Ted. Putman says that bodies should never be moved in haste since it takes away information that might be vital to understanding the real cause. We do not know how well that was handled here but hopefully it was done properly.
There are people here of good repute that told Joy and I that the dispatcher for the Yarnell fire department was instructed to shred records. We were told that the local fire department has witnesses that saw an argument as to whether to put the fire out or let it go until it grew into greater proportions so that crews could go to work. Considering the source of this information, I wonder why this is not investigated.
Again certain reputable people have told us that they have photos of two yellow and white ATV’s right at the fire on the evening lightening supposedly started this fire. Little has been said about this and I wonder why someone from government has not jumped on this information like bees on honey.
Maybe they have? If so we do not know and I personally do not have the clout to get them to do that. Maybe a Bob Powers or a John Daugherty or a mayor Kueykendahl could, Our friend, Charley Mosely, CIA operative and before a smioke jumper has sadly passed since the fire. He would have known what was necessary for such investigation and I hope there might be some other concerned firefighter with such high qualifications in the process to get honest answers which I believe will only come from an outside source such as the FBI.
I see that too many people are hiding evidence for selfish reasons, fear, or comraderie. Shame on them since their information is needed by the loved ones and not least because the full truth of this incident will save future lives.
I back Joy 100% on her efforts, but she is ill. The doctors tell her she has throat, tung and cancer tumors throughout her body. Yet she keeps plodding on in spite of doctors who want her in their clutches as soon as possible.
Something I am going to do now–we learned that from Show low a firefighter whom has only been on the fires for a couple years and is a young man has come down with a deadly cancer. Is there something in that agent orange fire retardant being used that the chemical companies are not telling us about? When I worked the Uranium mines they assured us that that low level radiation would not harm us. Yet nearly every Uranium miner I know has come down with one cancer or another. I myself have had a melanoma removed. You see, we are often lied to so that these big companies make their profits or because a government needs another atom bomb to wave at its enemies. Sadly that is the way the world works until people unite to protest.
Don’t be weak and fearful–put the information out even if you have to be anonymous to save your life.
Thank you good ones for keeping at this thing. Doing a good thing is always good for the soul.
also not the man was 100% in PERFECT health before graduating in 2012 to be a EMT/Firefighter.
People in the field new should keep a close eye on your blood labs before entering…fight some fires and see where you are at after fighting the fires.
Very good point!
What are they using out there to fight the fires nowadays…stuff to eventually kill their own men with insidious diseases. What is in that slurry drop.
I will be alright Sonny. Yet that was a forehead boo boo time today. I ordered proper labs to get proper answers.
Thank You to everybody who sweated out this past difficult week, trying to stay focused in spite of all the insanity provided by the United States Forest Service, the Arizona Department of Forestry, and the esteemed Law Professor.
And thank you to Aaron Hulburd who both captured the important videos we have been discussing all week and risked his life to do so while attempting, through fire and brimstone, to save the lives of the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots.
This is not a game.
Namaste
Elizabeth wrote ( in response to Method )…
>> When the USDA (which is the “parent” organization over the USFS) “redacted”
>> (or blurred) parts of the videos with the “R” in the name, the USDA had to save
>> those videos (the ones with the”R” in the names) in NEW file formats (as, say, Mp4
>> instead of whatever format they were in when Aaron took the video originally),
If you are NOT lying about having ‘original byte-for-byte copies’ of the same material that was released last Saturday by USFS ( via Arizona Forestry’s YouTube channel )… then just look at the EXIF metadata for the 18 files that the USFS insists were not redacted in any way.
Right there… you will see this ‘whatever format they were in when Aaron took the video’.
Then tell us what that ‘original format’ actually was for ANY of those other ‘unredacted’ videos.
If you can’t do that… then you don’t have ‘original byte-for-byte copies’ of the material…
…and that means you are a LIAR.
I think we just wasted a large chunk of yesterday.
Trying to chase down another, as TTWARE warned, red herring.
I’m moving on. I suggest we all do.
Her little games are just not worth our time. Seriously.
I don’t think she even knows what “exif metadata” is, or how to go about finding it. Seriously.
That’s why I made the comment about her comment about the flipphone videos.
If she had any clue whatsoever about what she was talking about, she would never have written that comment.
She thinks it’s a game.
Marti… you are right.
This is all just ‘games’ and ‘noise’ coming from her.
I thought you would catch the irony of what I posted above.
If she has ‘byte-for-byte original copies’ of any videos… she doesn’t even need to look at the EXIF data.
She can just look at the file extension to see what ‘original FORMAT’ these videos are in.
.MOV, AVI, 3GP, etc, etc.
The EXIF data would just simply be telling you MORE about it.
She doesn’t have what she claims to have.
She’s a liar.
Oh, right!
Thanks!
I was too busy chasing actioncams with zooms, I hadn’t even thought about that.
Plus I just don’t do enough video to be handily thinking about that.
Although I do appreciate the fact that her inane questions about the wind compelled me to sit down and really think about that and write what I wrote about the weather and the fire and the topography on this fire.
I really needed to do that.
So there’s that.
Elizabeth/Logical Phallacy,
Once again, I ALLEGE that you PROVE yourself to be a LIAR, DEVIOUS, VENOMOUS, with hidden agendas and so much more, with your despicable attitudes and behaviors. WHY do you continue to persist in this manner? You accuse others of what YOU yourself are responsible for and YOU yourself are doing on a regular basis. You are the CONSUMMATE HYPOCRITE! Who do you think you are anyway? Were you an only child and this is the only way you can get the attention you so desperately need? You are SO far off base on almost everything you post anymore, full of lies, falsehoods, and half-truths and then some. You are definitely setting a new standard for Law Professors. And your pattern is SO predicable as well. This latest one with you claiming to have all the original videos is an all-time classic though, and may top the Elizabeth/Logical Phallacy charts. A new zenith in Elizabeth/Logical Phallacy lies and hypocrisy! Please crawl back into your hole or into your web.
WARNING: DO NOT GIVE ELIZABETH/LOGICAL PHALLACY YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS AS SHE WILL USE IT AGAINST YOU. YOU WILL BE SORRY..
“You are definitely setting a new standard for Law Professors.”
Perfect.
Thank you for putting my exact thoughts into words.
I am completely appalled.
I have never known any Law Professors.
I have known, however, and awesome New Mexico State Supreme Court Judge.
She would have been completely appalled by this, also, I am sure.
RTS,
You may be pulling your punches a little bit. How many times has Elizabeth Nowicki shared information on this comment board that had been given to her privately? I don’t recall your ever having given her permission to use your name, for instance, but she did. She seemingly repeated, on here, details of private communications between the two of you, I believe again without your permission. That kind of failure to exercise normal rules of social courtesy as regards communications made in confidence would be poor behavior from someone working a fast food counter, but is incredibly poor in my opinion coming from an attorney.
Agree.
SR,
Thanks for your input. I appreciate it very much. I certainly AM ‘pulling my punches’ by trying to do the right thing and be as ‘sensitive’ as I can to the Black Widow Spider (BWS) Elizabeth/Logical Phallacy. It appalls me, yet does NOT surprise me that she is doing all this and behaving in the childish, yet devious manner that she is. Once again, she has set a new standard for Law Professors. This especially includes violating confidential matters by openly exposing to the world what was written in confidence between two agreeable (at the time) parties. She did NOT have my permission to expose any of what she has spewed forth. Her actions are the epitome of BASIC legal professionalism and BASIC common courtesy just thrown in your face.
WARNING: DO NOT GIVE ELIZABETH/LOGICAL PHALLACY YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS AS SHE WILL USE IT AGAINST YOU. YOU WILL BE SORRY..
SR,
Clarification. It should read “Her actions are the epitome of VIOLATIONS of BASIC legal professionalism and BASIC common courtesy just thrown in your face.
WARNING: DO NOT GIVE ELIZABETH/LOGICAL PHALLACY YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS AS SHE WILL USE IT AGAINST YOU. YOU WILL BE SORRY..
At 4:12 PM today, November 16, 2014,
The counselor and Law Professor, Elizabeth, wrote the following, regarding the original files of Aaron Hulburd’s extremely important video collection:
“I have it (at least for the ones I bothered to check), and I know that others have it.
I don’t know what JD has.”
Sorry, counselor and Law Professor.
All things considered, I don’t believe for a second you are in possession of what you claim, here, to be.
FAIL
Apparently, since the Law Professor is, seemingly, unable/unwilling to answer the fundamental question I asked her at 5:17 PM today:
“What cameras was Aaron using?”
…which would corroborate her ASTONISHING (all things considered) claim at 4:23 PM today that:
“I have it (at least for the ones I bothered to check), and I know that others have it.
I don’t know what JD has.”
and thus prove her credibility;
having, instead, prioritized attacking Bob Powers,
I rest my case that the said Law Professor appears to be more committed to her personal agenda (whatever that is),
than the search for TRUTH regarding both the videos in question, which are extremely important (to the point of being FOIA’d), and, therefore the TRUTH regarding this devastating wildfire and its subsequent investigations.
Marti… there are only two possibilities here.
1) The person commenting here known as ‘Elizabeth’ is telling the truth, and she did receive original byte-for-byte copies of material that USFS has in their possession at some unknown time prior to the orchestrated public release of information last Saturday, and the fulfillment of InvestigativeMEDIA’s original FOIA request a few days after that.
2) She is lying.
** IF (1) is TRUE
Then we actually owe her some thanks. She has done nothing but prove that everything we have been saying here all along is TRUE and she has automatically justified the thoughts, postings and information that regularly appears here on this forum.
But she has also gone further.
She has just basically provided PROOF that the US Forestry Service may have just violated Federal Law.
Here is what Mr. John Dougherty has already said publicly about what he received as a (supposed) valid ‘response’ to his legal FOIA request…
——————————————————————
Investigative MEDIA
Article: Forest Service releases Yarnell Hill Fire videos to InvestigativeMEDIA
November 12, 2014 By John Dougherty
The U.S. Forest Service has released to InvestigativeMEDIA the same set of Yarnell Hill Fire videos the Arizona Forestry Division posted on its website on Saturday, Nov. 8.
InvestigativeMEDIA filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the videos on Oct. 13. There is no indication that the Arizona Forestry Division filed a separate Freedom of Information Act request for the documents. The Forest Service has not provided an explanation of why the Forestry Division received the videos prior to InvestigativeMEDIA. The division states it received the videos on Nov. 7.
————————————————————————–
The letter of fulfillment that was received by InvestigativeMEDIA was directly from…
Tom Harbour – US Forest Service – Director of Fire and Aviation Management,
The key sentence is…
“The U.S. Forest Service has released to InvestigativeMEDIA the SAME set of Yarnell Hill Fire videos the Arizona Forestry Division posted on its WEBSITE on Saturday, Nov. 8”.
THOSE files ( the ones Arizona Forestry has posted on their website / YouTube channel ) are in no way ‘byte-for-byte original copies’ of the requested material, as are legally required to be provided in response to valid FOIA requests.
If Elizabeth DID receive MORE than that, or DIFFERENT, more complete versions of the same material in response to HER FOIA request(s)… then she has just proved that the US Forestry Service is ‘picking and choosing’ how to fulfill valid, legal FOIA requests… depending on WHO is making the request.
That’s illegal.
She would deserve ‘thanks again’ for now supplying public testimony that the US Forestry Service may have just committed a punishable offense.
I am sure some media outlets will follow up on this. It would be a big story, if true.
** IF (2) is TRUE ( That she is simply a liar )
Then I, for one, would respectfully request that she never post to this ongoing discussion again.
She now has an opportunity to PROVE whether it’s ‘door number (1)’ or ‘door number (2).
I hope she avails herself of the opportunity.
Exactly.
That’s part of the reason I used the term “astonishing” to describe her claim, which she seems so completely either unable or unwilling to corroborate.
Dear JD~
Can we Freds pleeze haz a new chapter?
Pretty Pleeze?
I know you must be really, really busy, given all this insanity surrounding the USFS –> Arizona Forestry Inc. release of the (cough cough) Aaron Hulburd videos, and I really appreciate all you do.
However, it’s really getting hard to type and post comments here.
Thank you in advance!
Signed,
Moi
I second the request.
This ‘chapter’ is already too large for it to completely load on a number of mobile devices.
Reply to Elizabeth post on November 16, 2014 at 1:20 pm
>> Elizabeth said…
>>
>> WTKTT asked: “If they are NOT claiming they made ANY redactions
>> whatsoever on these 18 other ‘original’ pieces of evidence… then WHERE
>> are the byte-for-byte ‘original copies’ of them and WHY were they
>> not already provided?”
>>
>> They WERE already provided.
To who?
The material sitting on YouTube is by no means byte-for-byte copies of the originals.
If they were… we would be seeing all the original EXIF metatdata in the files.
We are NOT.
Mr. Dougherty has indicated that the material he has received on a DVD that is also supposed to be a valid (legal) fulfillment of his original FOIA request is nothing more than the same YouTube videos linked to on the Arizona Forestry website prior to the fullfillment of his request.
I would HOPE they actually sent Mr. Dougherty valid, legal, byte-for-byte copies of the material they have in their possession ( as they are supposed to )… but it doesn’t sound like that happened.
I have it (at least for the ones I bothered to check), and I know that others have it.
I don’t know what JD has.
Fabulous!
What cameras was Aaron using?
The campfire circle waits with baited breath.
Marti Reed says
NOVEMBER 16, 2014 AT 6:01 PM
One would think a Law Professor would_____________________________
(Instructions: Fill in the blank section above the line.)
One Possible Answer:
Answer the obvious question that would prove he/she is telling the truth, instead of diverting it by attacking somebody else.
Oh, wait a minute……
Maybe they don’t teach that in Law School?
Case in point”
“What I DID say to you, Bob Powers, is that the lies and rumors you have repeatedly posted here are concerning. For example, some of your more recent lies or rumors are: the families had all previewed the videos…”
Still seeking submissions.
Marti, if you haven’t noticed, I am not putting up videos that I have re the YHF on youtube any more. But I imagine that John Dougherty will do it if you e-mail him and ask him politely. 🙂
Sorry, counselor.
That doesn’t answer my question.
Which, if you truly are in possession of what you say you are in possession of, you should easily be able to answer.
I would think a Law Professor would easily understand that.
Another possible answer.
Answer the obvious question that would prove he/she is telling the truth, instead of diverting it by sharing what somebody else may or may not have in their possession.
Oh wait, maybe they don’t teach that in Law School?
Case in point:
“Marti, if you haven’t noticed, I am not putting up videos that I have re the YHF on youtube any more. But I imagine that John Dougherty will do it if you e-mail him and ask him politely.”
Another possible answer.
Be able to successfully demonstrate how to be cross-examined, especially when one’s credibility is being questioned.
Oh wait, maybe they don’t teach that in Law School?
Case in point:
Crickets in response to the $64,000 question.
Tap Tap Tap
Still waiting for the answer to the $64,000 question.
Apparently, since our counselor, the esteemed Law Professor is, seemingly, unable/unwilling to answer the fundamental question I asked her at 5:17 PM (two and a half hours ago):
“What cameras was Aaron using?”
…which would corroborate her claim at 4:23 PM (almost three and a half hours ago) that started this whole thread:
“I have it (at least for the ones I bothered to check), and I know that others have it.
I don’t know what JD has.”
and thus prove her credibility;
having, instead, prioritized attacking Bob Powers,
I rest my case that our counselor, the esteemed Law Professor, appears to be more committed to her personal agenda (whatever that is),
than the search for TRUTH regarding both the videos in question, which are extremely important (to the point of being FOIA’d), and, therefore the TRUTH regarding this devastating wildfire and its subsequent investigations.
Correction.
I should have written:
“…which would corroborate her astonishing claim at 4:23 PM (almost three and a half hours ago) that started this whole thread:
Because that claim is, indeed ASTONISHING, all things considered.
One would think a Law Professor, when making an ASTONISHING claim, all things considered, would understand the necessity of PROVING that claim, all things considered.
Evidently you have not bothered to check any thing.
You bet the Farm that the whole thing on the Videos was rumors.
and you lost………..Now you have no information no contacts that have any thing
but your still in a hole attempting to impress WHO????????????????
No one here cares.
Same time replies nice Marti
I swore I had rested my case.
But. I. Just. Couldn’t. Resist.
Bob, just to clarify, I never said there were no further videos. I, actually, have long been aware of them (or actually in possession of them).
My point to you was that, contrary to your adamant contentions that these videos were going to reveal an argument between Steed and Marsh, I knew that they wouldn’t. I also made the point – correctly – that you and Fred Schoeffler were wrong about the families having viewed the videos. And you and Fred were wrong about ADOSH somehow having anything to do with the videos. And you and Fred were starting rumors – that were wrong – about Brendan having been deposed. All of that was wrong…. and I was CORRECT that you and Fred Schoeffler were getting all of that wrong.
Good try, though, Bob. Good try. 🙂
So now you are saying you have had these videos for some time that were just released. Now I have herd every thing You lie to make your self the outstanding investigator of all time.
A few days ago you said there were no additional Videos and we were just creating rumors.
Good luck on all that BS
Bob, I NEVER said there were no more videos – I knew that there were, and I know that there are actually more still, which I reached out to JD regarding (because I obviously have largely given up posting stuff publicly, although I still e-mail materials to people who want them privately).
What I DID say to you, Bob Powers, is that the lies and rumors you have repeatedly posted here are concerning. For example, some of your more recent lies or rumors are: the families had all previewed the videos that the AZFD just posted last weekend, ADOSH was somehow involved, the videos showed an argument between Steed and Marsh, Brendan was deposed. You remember those lies, right, Bob? THOSE were the things with which I was disagreeing.
I never denied that Hulburd (and others) had more video, because most of us already KNEW that for a fact. Indeed, there are more videos still, beyond the ones that I am assuming JD has recently received (although none that I know of (or already have) are Hulburd’s other than the ones already made public).
Elizabeth Some one like you calls me a Liar.
Who the F**K do you think you are????
The argument is on the redacted info/Notes
and on a copied video from one of the GM crew that was mailed to a family member I was Told. The Statements from Dudley confirm The argument
I have nothing more to say to a total F**King Moron .
Bob, don’t waste your valuable emotional energy.
I’m cross-examing her.
Come join the fun!
Start with my questionnaire!
Hint.
Look upstream.
I’m not sure she’s capable of being cross-examined, though.
Hmmmmmmm.
One would think a Law Professor would know how to do that.
Maybe they don’t teach that in Law School?
I wish I had the ability to pull up past postings for Elizabeth
Look at what Elizabeth poster to me on Nov. 8th @1133 am
In short—- there are no new videos and I was just starting RUMMERS Dam Counselor you better check what you say before you attack people for the truth.
That was just before all the Videos were released and you started becoming a fool. Now you state you knew all about them. You are a total and complete fool who has lost her worth here…………
Bob, what I said was this:
“Bob Powers and Fred Schoeffler said the helmet camera was going to be released by ADOSH days ago. But yet it is not here. Before you start rumors, guys, do your research first, ok?”
And that was TRUE. Not a damn thing came from ADOSH, which everyone who knew about those videos (which did not include either you or Fred, it seems) obviously knew.
I also said “as best I can tell, there is zero validity to the rumor Bob and Fred keep trying to start that Brendan has some big secret he is withholding and refusing to share and only now willing to share.”
And that remains the TRUTH, Bob. You and Fred are relentless with the inaccurate rumors and untruths. My personal opinion is that such things are hurtful and disruptive to both the grieving families and the grieving friends/community. I am entitled to my opinion on that, just as you are entitled to yours. 🙂
Please respond to the $64,000 question which will, easily and quickly establish your credibility as to your claim (which you started this thread with) to being in possession of the original videos in question.
What cameras was Aaron using?
Given that you keep saying you are so keen on
the TRUTH
Elizabeth
You took that hook line and sinker.
I rest my case
You should know better————-
Lesson #1 of Internet Conversations.
Don’t. Feed. The. Trolls.
Our counselor is clearly acting in a way befitting a Troll here.
I think it’s high time to quite feeding said counselor.
She’s truly
Wasting. Our. Precious. Time.
One would think a Law Professor would_____________________________
(Instructions: Fill in the blank section above the line.)
Can’t answer that question and/or make any suggestions.
I don’t know who she is working for, or what her agenda really is.
** THE COLORS MATTER
Reminds me of a test I took in college.
It was a final exam in a Theatrical Lighting class.
The professor hands out 3D drawing of a box set on a stage and says we are supposed to ‘draw in’ the electrics and what they call the ‘hang’ ( what fresnels go where, where we would use pano-spots, etc. ) and indicate what color ‘gels’ we would use.
The drawings he handed out were all just black/white Xerox copies of the same sketch. Everyone got the same ‘drawing’.
I was done with the test in 3 minutes.
All I did was write at the top of the paper…
I can’t answer the questions or perform the task.
You have neglected to indicate what COLOR the set is painted.
I was the only one who got an ‘A+’ on the test.
Reply to Elizabeth post on November 16, 2014 at 4:12 pm
>> Elizabeth said…
>>
>> I have it,
Super!
What is the DEVICE name ( Make / Model ) of the camera Aaron Hulburd was using to shoot the videos, then?
She already TOLD us, WTKTT!!!
Just a few days ago (this past week feels like a month, so there’s that), our counselor was absolutely sure the first three were taken with one of those flip callphones that firefighters use because nobody can afford to use the newer ones.
Fine… the let her answer my question.
What is the NAME ( Make / Model ) of the device?
Exactly.
Checkmate.
Look upstream.
Sorry, counselor.
All things considered, I don’t believe for a second you are in possession of what you claim, here, to be.
FAIL
**
** MORE ABOUT THE FIRST THREE ( NEWLY RELEASED ) VIDEOS
Here is some more information about the first THREE videos that were part of the 21 just released by the US Forestry Service.
It still seems they are NOT actually from Aaron Hulburd’s specific ‘Helmet Camera’ ( or whatever kind of camera he was actually using that afternoon to shoot all those other M2U00xxx videos )… but it DOES appear they WERE taken by Aaron Hulburd with the other two of the ‘Prescott Three’. ( Jason Clawson and KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell ).right there next to him ( in their UTVs ).
Here is why.
In other photos and videos from the fire… we can definitely see ( and have verified ) that the VEHICLES that Clawson, Hulburd and Yowell were driving were all ‘staged’ there on the side of the road just a few hundred yards south of the Incident Command Post there at the Model Creek School in Peeples Valley…
…but they are not IN the vehicles and the two UTVs are GONE from the trailers attached to Clawson and Yowell’s pickup trucks.
So they were out ‘bombing around’ on the fire somewhere when those other photos and videos captured their vehicles ‘staged’ there by the ICP.
As it turns out… this ‘burnout operation’ represented in the new ‘first three’ videos is where they actually seemed to have gone in their UTVs.
At exactly +27 seconds in the SECOND of these first three videos ( Video 0630131533 ), The ‘roll-cage’ and back storage section of a UTV suddenly slips into view in the very bottom left corner of the video.
Only KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell’s UTV ( with the red hood and fenders ) had a roll-cage.
Jason Clawson’s UTV had no such roll-cage ( at least not on that day ).
So whoever is shooting this video ( 0630131533 ) of that in-progress burnout operation up there on Model Creek Road was standing in the middle of the road… but also standing NEXT to this UTV with the roll-cage that we can now see was right there next to him.
At the very end of this video… you can even see the Nomex-shirt ( elbow? ) of whoever was standing to the cameraman’s LEFT briefly come into view. So that is proof that there was at least one other person ( with a Nomex shirt on ) standing to the LEFT of whoever was filming this particular video.
In the NEXT video with filename 0630131534 ( the THIRD of these first 3 videos in the new release )… the camera is now MOVING BACKWARDS as it films the men conducting more of the burnout operation.
The camera perspective is now from the RIGHT-CENTER of the road, and not from DEAD-CENTER in the road like the other two videos that precede this one.
At exactly +13 seconds into this THIRD video ( 0630131534 )… we again suddenly see part of the same UTV seen in the previous video to the LEFT of the camera… and it, too, is now ‘creeping forward’ on the road.
However… THIS time… we actually do see the RED FENDERS of the UTV which means it was most probably KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell’s UTV. I haven’t actually seen ANY other UTVs on the fire that day that had a RED hood and RED fenders like Yowell’s did.
Some of the GEAR that is in the back of this RED-fendered UTV also matches what can be seen later on in other views of Yowell’s UTV over on Shrine Road in the M2U00xxx video series.
But there is more.
At the very END of this video… just for a moment… we seem to ALSO see the fender of Clawson’s all-olive-drab UTV come into view in about the mid-left-center-bottom of the video as the ‘movement’ of the camera actually also seems to ‘pick up speed’ a little.
Seems to be proof that BOTH of the ‘Prescott Three’ UTVs were actually right there up on Model Creek Road… with Jason Clawson actively driving his and KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell actively driving his… so that only leaves Aaron Hulburd with ‘hands free’ to be the one filming the burnout.
So here is what I think all this proves…
1) After Jason Clawson and KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell unloaded their UTVs from their trailers up there where they were parked near the ICP… all 3 of ‘The Prescott Three’ headed up to the Model Creek Road area in the TWO UTVs.
2) Once there… Aaron Hulburd exited KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell’s RED-fendered UTV and was then standing in the middle of the dirt road and began filming this ‘burnout’ operation coming TOWARDS them.
3) In the SECOND video… Yowell and his RED-fendered UTV ( with roll-cage ) was to Hulburd’s LEFT while he was filming down the road, and Jason Clawson’s all-olive-drab UTV ( with no roll cage ) was actually there to Hulburd’s RIGHT, but never comes into view in this video.
4) In the THIRD video… Hulburd has now SAT on the BACK of Jason Clawson’s UTV, and he is still filming the ‘burnout’ operation coming towards them… but now BOTH Yowell and Clawson are driving BOTH UTV’s slowly forward, side-by-side, in order to stay ahead of the approaching burnout operation. At the end of the video… Jason Clawson picks up speed a little and that is why we suddenly see the RED fender of Yowell’s UTV come into view for a moment. Clawson got a little ‘ahead’ of Yowell who was also creeping forward in his UTV on the LEFT side of the video and that’s when we see Yowell’s RED fender appear there.
This still doesn’t FULLY explain why these videos do NOT match the resolution of Aaron Hulburd’s other ‘Helmet Cam’ videos… or why these videos use a DATE/TIME stamp for a filename and the others ones use the M2U00xxx filename convention… but I think we can take a pretty darn good guess at that, now.
Aaron Hulburd had some OTHER device with him capable of shooting movies and THAT is what he was using to shoot these FIRST three videos that we can now see.
It also makes sense that it would be Aaron Hulburd filming this ‘burnout’ operation up there on Model Creek Road. He is a career ‘Fuels Specialist’ for the Prescott National Forest… and this ‘burnout’ is exactly the sort of thing he would be interested in recording on film. Yowell and Clawson were just driving the two UTVs at that point.
I do believe we ARE looking at least TWO different ‘devices’ used to shoot the video that has appeared in the latest ‘evidence dump’ from USFS… but they BOTH probably belonged to Aaron Hulburd.
So that begs a new question which is similar to the one that has finally ‘shaken loose’ these other ‘Helmet Cam’ videos.
Whatever OTHER ‘video/audio’ capable device Hulburd might have been using to shoot these ‘burnout operation’ videos… was that REALLY the ONLY time he shot any videos or captured any radio transmissions that day with THAT ‘other’ device?
That is what the new USFS release would have us believe… the same way they wanted us to believe that the original ‘Helmet-Cam’ MAYDAY footage was the ONLY time Hulburd used his Helmet-Cam that day, as well.
I do NOT trust the US Forestry Service ( or Arizona Forestry ).
There could still be MORE videos just from that ‘other’ device Hulburd appears to have been using that day to shoot the burnout operation on Model Creek Road.
As I originally said that it was NOT CREDIBLE that the original MAYDAY footage could have been the ONLY time a true-blue videophile like Aaron Hulburd would have actually USED his Helmet Camera that day ( and it turns out my instincts were correct )… I also do NOT believe that if Hulburd had another video/audio capable device with him that day that he would have ONLY used it that ONE time there on Model Creek Road.
** A WORD ABOUT THE ORIGINAL FOIA REQUEST AND WHAT ENDED UP ‘RELEASED’…
When ‘InvestigativeMEDIA’ issued that FOIA request directly to the Prescott National Forest it was specifically asking for ‘Helmet Camera Video’ that was taken by any PNF employee who had worked the Yarnell Hill Fire.
Prescott National Forest obviously then had an ‘Oh Shit’ moment… and they immediately FORWARDED this valid FOIA request on to their ‘parent company’, the US Forestry Service.
In the letter that InvestigativeMEDIA got back from the USFS that was basically just ‘acknowledging’ the receipt of the FOIA request originally directed to Prescott National Forest… something got ‘mixed up’ as per what the actual REQUEST was.
Here is exactly what the ‘letter of receipt’ from USFS said…
—————————————————————————–
Dear Mr. Dougherty:
This letter acknowledges receipt of your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request dated October 20, 2014, which was received in the Washington Office (WO) FOIA Service Center, Office of Regulatory and Management Services on October 21, 2014.
You requested access to the complete, unedited video taken by Prescott National Forest firefighters on June 30, 2013 during the Yarnell Hill Fire.
(snip)
Sincerely,
/s/ Jeffrey Jasper for
GEORGE VARGAS
Freedom of Information Act/Privacy Act Officer
( US Forestry Service Logo appears here )
—————————————————————————–
Notice that the letter of receipt no longer specifically says that the FOIA request is for ‘Helmet Camera’ video ( only ).
So that is why those first THREE videos were probably included in this specific response to InvestigativeMEDIA’s original FOIA request for ‘Helmet Camera Video’.
When it hit the USFS… the ‘Helmet Camera’ specific part of the request had gotten ‘lost in the translation’ so now the request ‘morphed’ into one that was requesting ALL video(s) that might have been shot by a PNF employee on the Yarnell Hill Fire.
So that’s why the other three ‘Non-Helmet-Camera’ videos also got ‘popped out of the darkness’ here and added to the beginning of the list of videos.
Whether or not this really is ALL of the ‘video shot by any PNF employee who was at the Yarnell fire’ still remains to be seen… but I think this proves WHY those other three Non-Helmet Camera videos probably ended up included in THIS release. They weren’t specifically what you could call ‘Helmet Camera’ videos… but they WERE videos taken by a PNF employee ( Hulburd ) in Yarnell on June 30, 2013.
** A WORD ABOUT THESE FILENAMES
I am feeling the need to mention something about the filenames for these first three videos in the 21 just released by USFS.
The filenames for these first 3 videos ( as released ) are…
0630131532
0630131533
0630131534
It is pretty much ‘normal’ for a lot of video/audio capable devices to use this
MONTH + DAY + YEAR + HOUR + MINUTE style format for auto-naming the files
being saved to the memory card.
That in no way really tells us exactly what KIND of device was being used.
However… something is still a little odd.
If any device is using this kind of DATE + TIME format for actually naming files…
it is bascially IMPOSSIBLE for it to really only have been…
MONTH + DAY + YEAR + HOUR + MINUTE
It pretty much HAD to have been at least…
MONTH + DAY + YEAR + HOUR + MINUTE + SECOND.
Here is why.
You can’t possible expect a file naming scheme for a photo/video capable device to work when it can’t stamp the filenames down to at least the SECOND.
Anyone could take multiple photos/videos within a one minute timeframe and you also cannot possibly ever have TWO filenames on a memory card ( or even a hard drive ) with the EXACT same filename(s).
So if that device really was never using the SECONDS value for the filename stamping… it would have also have had to have been able to distinguish files all taken within the same minute with some kind of NAMING convention like this…
0630131532
0630131532(1)
0630131532(2)
0630131532(3)
Etc…
EACH of these first THREE files in this latest USFS evidence dump are all mysteriously 29.8 seconds long ( to within a few hundreths of a second ), and that is still not possible to achieve with the human hand working a shutter button… but I also still have no good explanation for that.
We would need to know more about the actual device in use to know more about that and whether it indicates any kind of ‘tampering’ with the original videos.
But… I still get the feeling that we are not seeing the ACTUAL (original) filenames for these first 3 videos in the recent ‘evidence dump’.
Each video is 29.8 ( Call it 30 ) seconds long… but the timestamps are all on consecutive MINUTE values ( 1532, 1533, 1534 ).
In order to believe these filenames are all exactly the way they originally were on the device’s memory card… that means we also have to believe that Aaron Hulburd ( or whoever took them ) also PAUSED for ( at least ) 30 seconds in-between each video filmed, and never tried to shoot anything that had the same MINUTE value for a start time.
I guess that’s possible… but regardless… something still tells me we are still not seeing the SECONDS value of the original filenames… which means these filenames themselves have been (essentiallly) ‘altered from the originals’.
That would be even more reason to question whether this latest ‘evidence dump’ from USFS really represents the original material they have in their possession… and whether it is, in fact, a full legal fulfillment of a valid FOIA request.
** MORE ABOUT THE UTVS
The rest of this is just for completeness sake and shows how we CAN know what KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell’s and Jason Clawson’s UTVs really looked like.
The new M2U00xxx videos also finally give us better looks at the UTVs that belonged to KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell and Jason Clawson that day… which has made it easier to identify them as the same ones that can seen for a few frames in the other 0630131532, 33 and 34 videos.
The M2U00267 video is 2 minutes and 18 seconds long.
At +1:36, Clawson, Hulburd and Yowell turn around and start walking backing EAST to where their 2 UTV’s are parked back in the actual St. Joseph Shrine parking log.
The rest of the video is just them walking all the way back to where theri UTV’s are parked and the closer they get… the better you can see the 2 (parked) UTV’s.
The one on the LEFT belongs to KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell and is the one with the RED hood and fenders on it. It has BOTH a roll-cage and a windshield frame on it. It is also the one with two front seats and the one that Aaron Hulburd also travels when they all move around.
The UTV on the RIGHT is Jason Clawson’s. It appears to be pretty much the same make/model as Yowell’s with identical front grill and headlights, but it does NOT have either a roll-cage or a windshield frame installed ( at least not on that day ). It is all olive-drab. It also appears to have some ‘gear’ in the front which would make it hard for two people to travel in it… so that is probably why Aaron Hulburd was always traveling in the other UTV with Yowell whenever they were ‘moving around’ in these UTVs that day.
At about +2:09 or +2:11 ( in video M2U00267 ) is the best closeup view of BOTH of these UTVs sitting side-by-side.
When they reach the 2 UTV’s… KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell moves towards the one on the left ( with the red fenders ) to get into the driver’s seat.Aarron Hulburd ( still filming ) is right behind Yowell and gets very close to him at this point and this is when you can clearly see that Hulburd’s camera has NOT been mounted on his Helmet for this video.
The camera lens is actually at about the same height as Yowell’s right elbow… which means it was probably clipped to Hulburd’s front shirt pocket while he was filming this M2U00267 video.
So whatever Aaron Hulburd was using to shoot these M2U00xxx videos that have come to be known as the ‘Helmet Cam’ videos probably wasn’t an actual brand-name Helmet Camera at all.
It is more likely it is just a device that is easily CLIPPED to things like a Helmet Bracket, or a short pocket, or whatever.
It it still important to know exactly WHAT device that was… what KIND of EXIF metadata SHOULD have been present in the video files themselves… and why NONE of that metadata has been included in what was supposed to be a valid fulfillment of a fully legal FOIA request.
Awesome! Thanks!
As soon as I looked at your post and saw that list of files, my brain went “Click.” I thought, “That CAN’T be the original filenames….”
And great analysis of the Model Creek burnout videos. I think they were having a blast. That, to me, is the sign of a true videophile. When I’m “in my zone” as a photographer (and it’s actually a PHYSICAL thing), I don’t stop shooting until I’m either exhausted or my cards or batteries have run out.
It’s also a mental/visual thing. Your eye starts seeing everything that’s “talking.” And it’s never just one thing that’s “talking.” There’s usually a big visual “conversation” that’s going on all around you. It’s hard to describe it. But you capture it.
I “saw” that happening with Chris McKenzie, through the eye of his lens. I could actually almost “feel” him seeing and clicking. And he was very very good at that.
I’m not a wedding photographer, but I’ve taken online classes from some of the best of them on CreativeLIVE. They also describe that “dance” of the photographer and the scene and the camera in the midst of the creative and emotional chaos of a wedding.
And, that tells me, also, that I’d bet big money Aaron was doing a WHOLE lot more filming than we are seeing.
You capture it. Because you HAVE to.
That’s a photographer. That’s a videographer.
I might add that a viewer of the pre released showing stated that the pre viewing of the video that the camera was hand held and not a helmet cam which I missed or forgot when I heard of the Videos was lulled into head cam.
So the clip on is probably a better description.
PNF employees did they have more than 1 camera or 1 person had 2?????
Reply to Bob Powers post on November 16, 2014 at 5:40 pm
>> Bob Powers said…
>>
>> So the clip on is probably a better description.
Yes.
When we find out exactly what it was ( and we most surely WILL )… I believe it will turn out to just be that Hulburd had a ‘Helmet Adapter’ for this particular camera or smartphone…but it is not marketed or branded as an ‘official’ ‘Helmet Camera’
>> Bob Powers also wrote…
>>
>> PNF employees did they have more than 1 camera
>> or 1 person had 2?????
Good question.
The original InvestigativeMEDIA FOIA request sent directly to Prescott National Forest ( and then forwarded immediately by PNF to their ‘parent company’… the US Forestry Service ) was specifically requesting ‘Helmet Camera Videos’ taken by any PNF employee.
Somebody at Prescott National Forest screwed up, it seems, when they forwarded the FOIA request and then the ‘letter or receipt’ from USFS to InvestigativeMEDIA said it understood the request to be for ALL VIDEO ( not just Helmet Camera Video ) from anyone who worked for Prescott Forest.
Keyword here ( in both cases ) is VIDEO.
There are no PHOTOGRAPHS in this latest ‘evidence dump’.
Just VIDEO… as USFS understood the original request to be.
So God knows how many actual PHOTOGRAPHS they ( USFS ) might have that were taken by these same men ( The Prescott Three ) with the same cameras.
It’s not credible that these men would have had cameras with them that day ( as we know they did ) and not have been USING them.
Everyone else was.
Someone needs to issue a separate FOIA for ‘All photographs taken at the Yarnell Hill Fire by any employee of the Prescott National Forest’.
This is like pulling teeth.
These people aren’t going to just ‘come clean’.
They are ONLY going to ‘give up’ something when the FOIA request specifically targets what they have in their possession.
By the way… a long time ago ( shortly after I first identified the shooter of the original MAYDAY footage as Aaron Hulburd, and the other two men in the video as Jason Clawson and KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell ) and I then discovered that all three of them were these Bea Day Type 2 team off-the-radar hires and that they all worked for the Prescott National Forest…
…I got tired of constantly typing…
Jason Clawson, Aaron Hulburd and KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell.
So I decided to give myself a break and just call them…
“The Prescott Three”.
I think I’m going to change that and just start calling them…
“The Three Prescotteers”
( LOL… I told you it was going to take some humor to get this latest round of USFS / AZF bullshit ).
Bingo!
And you do know that Prescott is pronounced like Biscuit, don’t you?
Press-kit. NOT Press-cot.
That’s really important to know.
So it’s The Three Press-kiteers.
OK, time for me to go back to bed, obviously.
Of course, it’s still spelled the same.
This pronunciation thing is just for when we are interviewed by major mainstream media.
Good Morning!!
Hope this week goes better than last week!
Altho some people who are really into video don’t do a lot of photography.
Why bother?
Videographers are capturing, most essentially, MOTION.
You can always pull a still out of a video.
I think Chris was way more into capturing stills than video.
I think, similarly, Aaron may have been way more into capturing motion than stills.
And regarding Chris and stills.
A lot of us who have “cut our teeth” in photography are still uncomfortable shooting video. We tend to be all perfectionistic when it comes to images, and have honed our skills to do that,
and video is truly a “horse of a different color.”
To get really good video requires a whole different set of technical skills.
So we are way more comfortable shooting stills than video.
I think Aaron might have been totally fine with just shooting video.
Copy ( all ) that…
…but I was actually agreeing with Mr. Powers.
It is perfectly possible that ALL THREE of the “Prescotteers” had cameras with them.
We still don’t know the full 411 on these guys… what they might ahve had with them that day… or even who the hell was giving them any ‘assignments’ or whether they were truly just ‘freelancing’ all over Yarnell that day.
In these videos just released… they really do just look like ‘tourists’ hanging around and ‘watching’ everyone else ‘do things’.
KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell was actually barking some orders at people from time to time ( Like ‘Hey Charlie… you need to be at the head of the column” )… but you can tell that was just him. He’s a Type A personality. Finds it hard to be quiet.
But we still have no idea what AUTHORITY these guys had to be telling ANYONE who was officially on the Arizona State Forestry Division payroll to be doing anything that day.
I have looked carefully for any ‘cameras’ clipped to the belts or in the pockets of KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell and Jason Clawson… and I don’t see anything visible… but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have them.
Example: Not only do we seem to actually SEE Jason Clawson talking on a ‘smartphone’ as his vehicle crosses the Panebaker camera setup headed for Yarnell…
…there were MANY individual phone calls that day directly between Jason Clawson and Darrell Wills from the time Clawson arrived… up to… and beyond the deployment.
So it’s pretty safe to say Clawson DID have a ‘smartphone’ with him that day.
Did he take any pictures ( or video ) with it?
We still can’t be sure he did NOT.
“…there were MANY individual phone calls that day directly between Jason Clawson and Darrell Wills from the time Clawson arrived… up to… and beyond the deployment.”
Is that from Willis’ interviews/unit log?
I’m wondering if, since Bea Day, the Type 2 LONG Teams Incident Commander was actually there, that she might have been “assigning” her people to their tasks?
There was so much confusion going on with this.
And, yes about the Prescotteers most likely having other imaging in their possession.
Marti Reed says
November 16, 2014 at 5:04 pm
Awesome! Thanks!
>> Marti said…
>>
>> As soon as I looked at your post and saw that list of files, my
>> brain went “Click.” I thought, “That CAN’T be the original
>> filenames….”
Here is something else to consider ( and something I am still putting a stopwatch on here and will report about soon ).
Again… the filenames for these first 3 videos ( as released ) are…
0630131532
0630131533
0630131534
All THREE of these videos are EXACTLY 29.8 seconds long ( give or take a few hundreths of a second ).
So… we are supposed to believe the following…
NOTE: For the sake of just explaining what I’m about to explain, I am going to assume what I established above is correct… that it was Aaron Hulburd operating this camera for these 3 videos and KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell was busy actually driving his red-fendered UTV… and Jason Clawson was also busy actually driving his olive-colored UTV.
Aaron shoots the FIRST 29.8 second long 0630131532 video.
The ‘second hand’ of the clock was somewhere between 1532 and 1533 and that’s why the filename is timestamped the way it is… at 1532.
Aaron then pauses NO MORE than 30 seconds before he then starts shooting the SECOND 29.8 second long 0630131533 video.
The ‘second hand’ of the clock is now between 1532 and 1533… hence… the 1533 filename suffix.
Once again… Aaron then pauses NO MORE than 30 seconds before he then starts shooting the THIRD 29.8 second long 0630131534 video.
The ‘second hand’ of the clock is now between 1533 and 1534… hence… the 1534 filename suffix.
Sounds GOOD, right? Sounds perfectly POSSIBLE, right?
Well… here is the NEWS FLASH.
It appears ( based on what is actually being filmed ) that there are MORE than 30 seconds of actual real-life separation in the parts of reality that lie in-between the videos.
That means ( since each video is already 29.8 seconds long ) that if there were MORE than just 30.2 seconds of reality happening in-between the videos themselves… then it is not possible for the filenames to be the way they are.
It is actually looking like the real-time separation between the end of the SECOND video and the start of the THIRD video had to be even a little more than SIXTY seconds ( perhaps more )… based on the ACTUAL movement of the men and the truck that is coming forward on the road.
If that turns out to be the case… then there is NO WAY that THIRD 29.8 second video could possibl have a timestamped filename of 0630131534.
It would have HAD to have been at least a minute LATER than 1534
and looked something like 0630131535 or (perhaps) 0630131536.
Still figuring this out ( with a stopwatch, Google Earth, and some software ).
More later.
Shoot… I mis-typed something in ‘Step 4’ above.
I hope it was obvious that was a typo.
That ‘step’ should have been…
The ‘second hand’ of the clock is now between 1533 and 1534… hence… the 1533 filename suffix.
**
** TIME FOR A NEW CHAPTER?
This is just a ‘heads up’ to everyone.
I think this Chapter might be exceeding the limits of the WordPress software again.
Some ‘orphaned comments’ are starting to appear in weird places… such as the follwing from ‘mike’ that somehow is now appearing at the very BOTTOM of this Chapter and not where it was intended to appear…
—————————————————
On November 15, 2014 at 4:41 pm, mike said…
Did not know that about Brown.
Checked and he a cat 1 racer – i.e. VERY elite.
Believe me, he is in shape.
—————————————————
If a comment doesn’t seem to appear… check the very BOTTOM of this Chapter.
‘Orphanded’ comments can often appear WAY down there when WordPress is starting to go brain-dead because of too many messages.
Thanks John!!
Oops,
thanks wtktt!!
it’s definitely time for me to go do something else. Like watch an awesome dance performance!
Followup… I actually think it would make sense to start a new chapter that coincides with the latest release of ‘evidence’ from USFS.
We haven’t even really begun to fully analyze it and it would make sense to start a new chapter for that.
Just thought I’d let you know I provided all that fluff down below to help move this process along.
It is, in TRUTH (cough cough) the ONLY reason I did it.
As I told Mr. Powers below when he jokingly said he thought M2U just stands for ‘Me To You’… it’s gonna take some humor to get through this latest round of bullshit ‘brought to you by’ the US Forestry Service ( and Arzizona Forestry ).
Thanks for providing some.
That sequence was HILARIOUS ( and actually spot-on ).
I worked on the Navajo Reservation.
That explains everything.
Survival Skilz.
Actually I worked for the Elders of the Big Mountain Sovereign Dine Nation.
Which explain even more about my Survival Skilz.
They were fighting Congress.
In response to “Methods,” the videos with the “R” at the end of them are “redacted,” which explains why you can see them in different formats than you can with the other videos in that bunch (that apparently John Dougherty is only now getting). Meaning: when the USDA (which is the “parent” organization over the USFS) “redacted” (or blurred) parts of the videos with the “R” in the name, the USDA had to save those videos (the ones with the”R” in the names) in NEW file formats (as, say, Mp4 instead of whatever format they were in when Aaron took the video originally), which explains why you can therefore view them in different formats (or whatever the technical word is) than you can with the videos that do NOT have the “R” in the name.
Phrased differently, in order to “redact” or blur things out, the USDA had to save those videos – and only those videos (with the “R” in the name) – in a DIFFERENT format (which then allows you to view them differently, as you observed).
Sorry.
I can edit any frickin video I want to, in Lightroom or Photoshop, and save it in the original format, or any other format I CHOOSE to.
Reply to Method’s post on November 15, 2014 at 11:48 am
>> Method said…
>>
>> From my experience, no “helmet cams” have the ability to zoom.
>> These type of cameras are meant to capture action sports and
>> give a first person perspective, so they tend to have wide angle
>> lenses on them.
Exactly correct.
>> Method also said…
>>
>> I honestly don’t know what kind of camera Aaron was using.
Neither do we, at this point. Still trying to determine that.
As I said yesterday… even though the original MAYDAY footage that Arizona Forestry released back in December was called “The Helmet Cam Video”… Aaron’s camera might not have been an actual de-facto ‘Helmet Camera’ at all. In some of the newly released videos it is obvious that it was just clipped to his front shirt pocket like some of the newer ‘Body Cam’ cameras Police are using. It could have been just something that was able to CLIP to a Helmet Bracket… or a shirt pocket… or whatever.
>> Method also said…
>>
>> One thing that I did notice with the file names of the “newly” released
>> videos is that the ones that have a “R” at the end are viewable in
>> 1080p (HD) while the others without the “R” are only viewable in 480p.
>> My only explanation for this would be that Aaron was switching
>> between “low” and “high” quality mode or he was using two separate
>>cameras. Both explanations seem weird to me. Sorry if this info has
>> all ready been discussed.
Even though US Forestry has removed MOST of the EXIF metadata from ALL of these ‘copies’ of Hulburd material they released… it appears that SOME of the original EXIF data survived their copies and their conversions.
Here is a post I made yesterday down below in response to Mr. Powers which explains what I am seeing and coincides with what you, yourself have noticed about these ‘files’.
>> Bob Powers wrote…
>>
>> This was not the original videos so an assignment of
>> numbers could have come as the segments were copied
Yes. It’s possible.
Mr. Powers… what you are about to see is that there IS more evidence ‘lurking’ in these videos.
Even though what has been released are not ‘byte-for-byte’ copies of the originals and all the original DEVICE metadata has been purposely REMOVED from them… there are STILL some pieces of EXIF metadata that will survive most ‘conversions’ and ‘editing’.
One of those is the ‘original image size’, which can also give you a clue about the DEVICE that took the video.
MOST of the M2Uxxxxx video clips… even as they are sitting on Arizona Forestry’s YouTube channel… are showing a width/height dimension of 854 pixels wide by 480 pixels high.
854×480 is a pre-determined video dimension known as FWVGA
FWVGA = Full Wide Video Graphics Array.
However… any file in the AZF release that has had an ‘R’ added to the end of it ends up with a DIFFERENT video resolution.
All the files with an ‘R’ added seem to be in the 1280×720 format.
Also… the M2Uxxxx clips that have retained what appears to be the original FWVGA ( 854×480 ) formatting are also showing a sound codec handler named Lavf54.29.104…
…but the M2Uxxxx files in the release that have an ‘R’ added to the filename are simply showing a sound codec handler name of ‘Apple’.
So what the hell does all that mean?
It means that the ORIGINALS ( from Hulburd’s camera ) were probably shot with a device that uses the FWVGA 854×480 dimensions and the Lavf54.29.104 audio codec…
…but files that have been EDITED by US Forestry were edited on an
Apple computer and then ‘saved’ back to disk with an altered format
of 1280×720 and a reconvert on the audio track using Apple’s sound codec.
This does NOT mean that the ones still using the FWVGA 854×480 format and the Lav54.29.104 codec have NOT been altered.
They still might have been ‘truncated’ either at the start, or the end… or both… and still retained those settings of the orginal metadata.
It just means that it is perfectly obvious which files the US Forestry was editing manually and making actual CHANGES to the interior of the video before ‘saving’ the material back to disk… and that all these files they were EDITING were being done on an Apple computer.
Even if they hadn’t been adding that stupid ‘R’ letter to the ends of the filenames they are ADMITTING to altering… we would still have been able to tell which ones they were monkeying with on their Apple Computer.
The combination of the M2Uxxxxx file naming format ( which might mean it has to be a Sony-based Camera? ), the FWVGA 854×480 default video resolution, AND the fact that the device might be using the Lav54.29.104 audio codecs might all help tell us exactly what DEVICE Aaron Hulburd was using.
I am still checking on that. Stay tuned.
I still maintain that the US Forestry Service has still NOT lawfully complied with any legal FOIA request because we are not seeing the actual EXIF DEVICE information in these files.
You are allowed to make redactions and claim ‘exemptions’ under the FOIA rules… but you are still supposed to deliver ‘essentially identical’ copies of the material you have in your possession.
Removing MOST of the original EXIF data is still a no-no, legally speaking.
WARNING: I think WordPress is starting to go ‘brain dead’ again because of too many messages. My response to ‘Method’ above was supposed to be a new ‘parent’ comment and it has appeared here as a ‘Reply’ instead.
One of mike’s comments also just got ‘orphaned’ as well and somehow is only appearing at the very BOTTOM of this Chapter.
Time for Chapter TEN?
I actually think the release of the new footage ( and our current discussion of it ) would be a good ‘logical place’ to start a new chapter.
WTKTT—-For your info……….
The FS has some Highly qualified Information officers I use to work wit one he had quite a office where he could edit and work with all kinds of video arranging it into news releases or Forest information disks for release on many different
Forest projects.
So I am saying The FS has some very sophisticated equipment on many forests or in Regional offices that could edit an original or copy of an original Video
Mainly just for a heads up to you and Marti.
What we are seeing is an edited version of the original with what was selected to release I would bet on it. It was not as well done as it could have been and you are finding the flaws.
Keep digging the answer is there…………
Mr. Powers… thank you.
That is why it will be IMPOSSIBLE for the US Forestry service to claim that anything that happened here was any kind of ‘amateur hour’ mistake.
That is also why I took the time below to tell you that ‘story’ about how whoever did the ‘pixelation’ BLUR-OUT on the face of the driver of the white pickup was obviously VERY GOOD at that sort of thing.
If you trace that blur-out operation frame-by-frame… it’s obvious it was no slouch tasked with doing that. He/She makes NONE of the mistakes that most people would when attempting that sort of thing.
So they knew EXACTLY what they were doing.
There is no doubt about that.
WHY they were doing it ( and not completely fulfilling a valid, legal FOIA request )… is what remains to be discovered.
One thing to remember they are not the FBI or CIA
they are not proficient at this so they may well screw up don’t expect Einstein here.
Keep working at it.
Exactly.
Speaking of Non-Einstein matters…
If you read the letter that John Dougherty received from Tom Harbour ( Head of Fire Aviation as USFS and close co-worker of SAIT Co-Leader Mike Dudley ) regarding the CONTENTS of the FOIA package… Mr. Harbour states unequivocably that ONLY 4 of the 21 videos they are ‘delivering’ in fulfillment of the FOIA request have been ‘redacted’ in any way.
Mr. Harbour of USFS also gives valid explanations for the ‘redactions’ and exactly where they are in the videos that have an ‘R’ added to the filenames.
Okay. Fine. Whatever.
What that actually MEANS, then, is that there is absolutely no reason why the OTHER 18 videos should not be absolute byte-for-byte copies of Aaron Hulburd’s ORIGINALS, complete with all original EXIF metadata.
They aren’t.
It is all well and good that Tom Harbour and the USFS wanted to ‘get out ahead of the story’ and make arrangements with Arizona Forestry for THEM to host a web page containing ‘copies’ of these videos…
…but providing the same videos that have been simply prepared for uploading to YouTube is NOT the same as legally fulfilling a valid FOIA request.
So according to Tom Harbour himself… EIGHTEEN of the videos that should have been delivered to InvestigativeMEDIA should have been absolute byte-for-byte copies of what they originally received.
If they are NOT claiming they made ANY redactions whatsoever on these 18 other ‘original’ pieces of evidence… then WHERE are the byte-for-byte ‘original copies’ of them and WHY were they not already provided?
WTKTT asked: “If they are NOT claiming they made ANY redactions whatsoever on these 18 other ‘original’ pieces of evidence… then WHERE are the byte-for-byte ‘original copies’ of them and WHY were they not already provided?”
They WERE already provided.
Reply to Elizabeth post on
November 16, 2014 at 1:20 pm
>> Elizabeth said…
>>
>> WTKTT asked: “If they are NOT claiming
>> they made ANY redactions whatsoever
>> on these 18 other ‘original’ pieces of
>> evidence… then WHERE are the
>> byte-for-byte ‘original copies’ of them
>> and WHY were they not already provided?”
>>
>> They WERE already provided.
To who?
The material sitting on YouTube is by no means byte-for-byte copies of the originals.
If they were… we would be seeing all the original EXIF metadata in the files.
We are NOT.
Mr. Dougherty has indicated that the material he has received on a DVD that is also supposed to be a valid (legal) fulfillment of his original FOIA request is nothing more than the same YouTube videos linked to on the Arizona Forestry website prior to the fulfillment of his request.
I would HOPE they actually sent Mr. Dougherty valid, legal, byte-for-byte copies of the material they have in their possession ( as they are supposed to )… but it doesn’t sound like that happened.
For anyone following this particluar thread… see above for continuation of this specific exchange.
The poster known as ‘Elizabeth’ came right back and said these ‘byte-for-byte original copies’ of the material USFS has in there possession were provided to HER.
We have give her the chance to prove what she said by simply telling us what some of the original EXIF data is from the files… or what FORMAT the original Hulburd video was in… but she refuses to even do those simple things.
It is most likely she is simply just LYING… but if she is NOT… then she has just given de-facto public testimony that the United States Forestry Service is violating Federal Law by ‘picking and choosing’ what to deliver in response to valid, legal FOIA requests depending on WHO the requestor is.
Stay tuned. More about this to come, I’m sure.
If the USFS really is violating Federal Law… I’m sure the mainstream media will be all over it.
Hope this goes where it’s supposed to.
I don’t know if you saw below where I asked if Aaron was even zooming.
So I quickly went back and looked at the first of the M2U’s (I’m totally unfamiliar with this format, and had never even heard of it til now).
He is, indeed, zooming in and out. That means there has to be a button or something (which kind of defeats the purpose of “Look Mom No Hands.”)
And it also means, I think, it’s something different from what police use for their hear/body cams.
The other thing that struck me while watching that video is the extremely high “resolution” of it, even though I was even only watching it in 360p. Usually I have to bump a youtube video up as high as I possibly can to get decent resolution, unless it’s shot with a really good camera.
I’ve watched lots of Ferguson livestreaming, and they use the best and the newest iphones, and their video isn’t as good as that one of Aaron’s.
It reminds me of when my daughter was doing her college junior year in France in 2007/2008 and she was photographing it all with her little 2-year old Nikon Coolpix and putting it all up on Facebook so I could show the pix to my dying father.
When I finally got the cd’s of the photos I was blown away. She was shooting at 3 megapixels (to save laptop hard-drive space) and the images were amazing! I’ve made 13×19 prints of them for her to sell, and the detail is stunning. Even her night photos.
I’m sure it was the lens.
So there’s that.
Also. I haven’t downloaded any of these videos. I decided to wait until JD put them in his dropbox. So I don’t know what the files look like.
You said:
“One of those is the ‘original image size’, which can also give you a clue about the DEVICE that took the video.
MOST of the M2Uxxxxx video clips… even as they are sitting on Arizona Forestry’s YouTube channel… are showing a width/height dimension of 854 pixels wide by 480 pixels high.
854×480 is a pre-determined video dimension known as FWVGA.”
So are you seeing something that says “Original Image Size” in the metadata?
Or are you going by the fact that the video you downloaded from YouTube is 854×480?
Hmm just googled 480p and it is usually 720×480 so I guess that does look like 854×480 is unique.
This stuff is really new territory for me.
Now I not only need to agonize over what kind of smartphone to get, but what kind of head/whatever cam to get.
Personally, I want a gopro and a drone for Christmas.
Marti… as I told Mr. Powers in a comment above… the thing to really focus on here is WHY USFS has NOT provided ‘byte-for-byte’ copies of at least the 18 video clips they claim have NOT been ‘redacted’ in any way.
That letter Mr. John Dougherty got explaining what was GOING to be sent in fulfillment of InvestigativeMEDIA’s FOIA request was signed by Mr. Tom Harbour.
Tom Harbour is the de-facto HEAD of Fire Aviation at the United States Forestry Service. He and SAIT Co-Lead Mike Dudley have worked together for almost a decade now… and many of Mr. Tom Harbours USFS memos and documents are actually co-signed by Mike Dudley ( but not the letter sent to John Dougherty ).
Mr. Harbour states in no uncertain terms that only FOUR of the 21 videos have had ‘redactions’ applied. He does, in fact, say that these files have an ‘R’ added to the filenames and ( in the letter ) he DOES give valid reasons why the redactions were being applied to these FOUR videos.
Fine. Whatever.
That leaves EIGHTEEN video files that should be absolute byte-for-byte copies of the originals… complete with ALL original EXIF metadata.
Preparing files for a YouTube channel and then releasing THOSE files in response to an FOIA request is NOT a valid, legal response to that FOIA request.
I really think this has to be pursued.
If Mr. Harbour is telling the truth… then there is NO REASON why 18 of those 21 videos should not be byte-for-byte copies of Hulburd’s originals.
I think we WILL find out exactly what kind of camera Aaron Hulburd was using that day… but that still won’t produce byte-for-byte copies of his originals.
Someone is going to have to ‘challenge’ what was released and take the stance that the FOIA request has NOT been legally fulfilled ( yet ).
Exactly.
Anybody want to lay bets on whether it will be JD or AZCentral who does it first?
Reply to Elizabeth post on November 15, 2014 at 5:37 pm
>> Elizabeth wrote
>>
>> Phrased differently, in order to “redact” or blur things out, the USDA had
>> to save those videos – and only those videos (with the “R” in the name) –
>> in a DIFFERENT format (which then allows you to view them
>> differently, as you observed).
They most certainly did not HAVE to do that… just because they were adding even legitimate ‘redactions’ like blurring out a citizen’s face, blocking a phone number in the audio, or ‘blacking out’ images of the deployment site.
They CHOSE to do it.
USFS has CHOSEN to release copies of the videos that are NOT ‘original copies’ with all the EXIF metadata still present in the files.
This is actually a violation of the rules of FOIA… and no one should consider their original FOIA requestes to have been properly ( and legally ) fulfilled yet.
Also… I covered all this yesterday. You must have missed it.
See above ( or below ).
WTKTT said: “Also… I covered all this yesterday. You must have missed it.”
You must have missed Mart’s post – I was responding to a post that Marti made in which she quoted “Methods” as seeming confused about why the “R” videos were different. Because I have some of the metadata, I could clarify… so I did. 🙂
I think you missed the point.
I want to pull this discussion up to the top again, because it’s way down in the stream.
Methods says
NOVEMBER 15, 2014 AT 11:48 AM
”
From my experience, no “helmet cams” have the ability to zoom. These type of cameras are meant to capture action sports and give a first person perspective, so they tend to have wide angle lenses on them. I honestly don’t know what kind of camera Aaron was using.
One thing that I did notice with the file names of the “newly” released videos is that the ones that have a “R” at the end are viewable in 1080p (HD) while the others without the “R” are only viewable in 480p. My only explanation for this would be that Aaron was switching between “low” and “high” quality mode or he was using two separate cameras. Both explanations seem weird to me. Sorry if this info has all ready been discussed.”
Thanks! It makes sense to me now (DOH) that a helmet cam would not zoom. “Look ma, no hands!”
WTKTT wrote somewhere in this jumble of threads that he thought maybe the originals were a smaller format and the Rs were a larger format.
That, actually, didn’t quite make sense to me, except for that’s what “the evidence” shows in the metadata.
I know so little about video-editing or these kinds of cameras that I have no clue.
I’m actually really posting this here so WTKTT sees it so he can weigh in on what you are saying.
BTW I came across a youtube video that’s kind of an ad for two types of police headcams. It was interesting.
Here it is:
“Police Body Cams: Comparing the Vievu LE3 and Taser’s Axon”
http://youtu.be/q_3BV8YdQs4?list=PLTErVrHH6uJja-ljtn7z9Q5Sz9WtCPGw1
I have to say, all things considered, a police body-camera with the name Taser is not the best PR, IMHO.
But I found it interesting, given what WTKTT was realizing about how he didn’t think Aaron’s camera was a head/helmet cam, after all.
So these cameras wouldn’t zoom either.
Now that I’m thinking about it, are we sure Aaron was even zooming his lens? I can’t imagine, how you could do that. The whole point is “Look Ma, No Hands!”
Thanks for your help!
Marti… we must have pressed ‘transmit’ at the same time.
I was answering Method’s latest post as well and that information I was giving to Mr. Powers is reproduced up above.
Brilliant minds think………..similarly.
Unless they really really disagree.
Allow me to clarify two things for some of you:
1. Video M2U00264 cannot provide evidence of what the winds were doing at 4:22 p.m. because video M2U00264 was not recorded until AFTER 4:27.29 p.m. on June 30, 2013. (While I do not have my notes and the video metadata in front of me, I know at the very least that the M2U00264 video started AFTER the Yarnell Gamble video ended, which, off the top of my head, ended somewhere around 4:27.29-ish p.m.)
2. In the same video (M2U00264) that Marti cites as showing evidence of 30 or 40 or 45 mph winds from an alleged outflow boundary bringing winds from the N/NE, we hear Paul Musser – who most stellar WFFs in R-3 seem to view highly and who was actually supposed to be the IC for the YHF on the 30th (and who was also the highly-respected Supt. of Flagstaff Hotshots for many years, training some of the best WFFs of the current generation (according to those who know about such things), much, by the way, like Marty Rose, who also is viewed as being one of the best WFF trainers in R-3 at the time) – mentioning that his smartphone advises that the winds in Skull Valley are 40 mph. What Paul does NOT say at the end of his comment is “ALSO” or “TOO.” Paul makes his comment about the winds in Skull Valley in a way that suggests he is NOT feeling the same level of winds right there in the Shrine area. If you disagree, I’d be curious to know what you are hearing in Paul’s comments to suggest that I am misunderstanding Paul’s sentiment.
🙂
Okay… what the heck… just for entertainment’s sake… I’ll bite.
1) What is the significance of 4:22 PM to the extent that you are ‘hanging your hat’ on it?
If you are ( for some reason ) trying to get as close to 4:22 as possible… then please have a look at the actual YARNELL-GAMBLE video above again… and look closely at the TREES.
They are all blowing just as hard ( if not harder ) than the ones in Marti’s example video of what trees like that look like in 30 mph winds. Also please watch the ABC15 ‘Air15’ Helicopter footage again. They were over the fire from 3:59 PM to 4:39 PM. Pay close attention to what is happening on the GROUND in this Helicopter footage.
2) Just because Paul Musser does NOT add a single word to the end of his report about what is happening in Skull Valley… you are assuming no similar winds were blowing in Yarnell?
Seriously?
In the video in question… you don’t have to look to Paul Musser’s use of the King’s English to wonder if the wind was blowing in Yarnell. Just WATCH THE VIDEO ( and the ones that accompany it ).
Your argument is like saying if you are watching of a video of someone standing in the rain but they don’t SAY it’s actually raining where they are… then it must not be and the video is some kind of ‘illusion’.
And…….. yes.
“Is it……raining???” says one firefighter with a mystified voice.
“Yes, I think it IS!!” answered another, with an equally mystified voice.
And our counselor says,
“That CAN’T be true, I don’t see the rain falling in the video!”
“Is it NIGHT???” says one firefighter, in a mystified voice, as a massive amount of smoke and embers shrouds him, making him cough heavily.
Our counselor schools him, with a determined and patient “voice.” “Of course it’s not night! Let me explain. Listen up, and tell me if you think I’m making it a mistake. It’s only 4:31 in the afternoon. And are you, by any chance Fred? Because you are making a really dumb mistake!”
“And because you look like all those other Freds standing around you.”
And our counselor replies to Marti Reed:
“And, Marti, please review the video. The one asking “Is it NIGHT???” is not the same firefighter who is coughing. You really need to get your facts straight”
To which Marti Reed replies:
“I think you’re missing the point.”
Of course this whole potentially disastrous and unfit for general consumption (much less those poor FAMILIES) mix-up in communications is directly caused by WantsToKnowTheTruth who, at exactly 10:05 PM on NOVEMBER 15, 2014, who in TRUTH wrote:
“Okay… what the heck… just for entertainment’s sake… I’ll bite.”
And, of course everybody that’s anybody in Region 3 knows WTKTT is actually Fred, along with RTS, TTWARE, SR, FF+20, and now, due to my extensive research, we also know Mike is also.
And they all know Fred is a trouble-maker.
And that High Priestess of the Weather Wizards, hmmmmm, I’m now beginning to suspect she’s Fred, too…..
I know this because I live in Region 3, AND I have a telephone!
I rest my case.
OK.
I get what you are saying about 4:22 (when Tyson’s log says winds from the west at 45mph), vs the winds in the video, which appear to me to be, basically 30-ish mph. Not 45, at that point.
We’re talking a plus/minus 5 minute difference.
I think that is realistic because of the topography.
Indeed the two videos Aaron took before 264 don’t show anywhere near as much wind, as far as I can see.
So we are looking at a wind that hit the Shrine area a teensy bit later (5-ish minutes) than it hit the Youth Camp.
That is totally not unusual, given the topography.
The Youth Camp is located in an area in which an east/west drainage (where the dozer line was put in connecting to Sesame) meets another drainage coming down from the north, and also meets another low area wrapping around the boulder hill to the north of where the crew was cutting brush to help create the line they were all thinking of burning out that night.
The area near the Shrine, where Aaron was filming, is further south, in a north/south drainage area, surrounded by trees on both sides. More protected.
The way wind works, it’s not programmable, or even. It’s partly seriously dictated by topography, regardless of what system, overall, is creating. It’s very dynamic.
Living in Albuquerque, where we often get these thunderstorms with powerful outflow boundaries, the air can be totally calm and then suddenly be blowing 60 mph and uprooting trees. It can be really freaky.
So it’s completely understandable that a wind event would hit the Youth Camp in such a way that Tyson would estimate it at 4:22 PM at 45 mph (probably partially based on possible earlier micro weather observations), and then hit the more southern and protected area five minutes (-ish) later at about 30 mph.
You seem to be concerned about the wind(s) being indraft (via the fire) vs outflow (via the thunderstorm). And thus you keep saying “alleged outflow.”
Quite frankly, I think we are looking at a chaotic combination of the two. The thunderstorm pushing down from the northeast would have, on a seriously oversimplified model, most likely have pushed outflow winds GENERALLY from the northeast to the southwest at this location. Which they did, causing the fire to stand up and then turn around and push the entire fire, ultimately towards the southwest, killing Granite Mountain and burning down Glen Ilah.
But this is not oversimplified on the ground, with a fire rotating clockwise, sucking those winds back up into it over complex topography. Which is, I think, the point you are trying to make. That’s also why, I think, Tyson recorded the winds as being from the west.
I’ve been wondering myself, it that storm was pushing outflow winds, essentially, to the southwest, which I think it was, why is Tyson recording them out of the west, and, although it’s really hard to tell, that seems to be what is happening in the video.
Basically, I think the whole thing we are seeing is a really complex extreme wind/fire event that’s also being shaped by the topography. It’s not an either/or.
It’s extreme fire behavior coupled with a thunderstorm coupled with topography.
OK, dad, I hope I got that right.
Marti the Weather Girl
A Fire Weather Schooling on Local factors and the influence of Thunderstorms.
Calm to extreme winds from many directions.
“Is it raining????” said one firefighter.
“Yes, I think it is!!!” said another.
**
** MORE ABOUT THE FIRST THREE ( NEWLY RELEASED ) VIDEOS
Here is some more information about the first THREE videos that were part of the 21 just released by the US Forestry Service.
It still seems they are NOT actually from Aaron Hulburd’s specific ‘Helmet Camera’ ( or whatever kind of camera he was actually using that afternoon to shoot all those other M2U00xxx videos )… but it DOES appear they WERE taken by Aaron Hulburd with the other two of the ‘Prescott Three’. ( Jason Clawson and KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell ).right there next to him ( in their UTVs ).
Here is why.
In other photos and videos from the fire… we can definitely see ( and have verified ) that the VEHICLES that Clawson, Hulburd and Yowell were driving were all ‘staged’ there on the side of the road just a few hundred yards south of the Incident Command Post there at the Model Creek School in Peeples Valley…
…but they are not IN the vehicles and the two UTVs are GONE from the trailers attached to Clawson and Yowell’s pickup trucks.
So they were out ‘bombing around’ on the fire somewhere when those other photos and videos captured their vehicles ‘staged’ there by the ICP.
As it turns out… this ‘burnout operation’ represented in the new ‘first three’ videos is where they actually seemed to have gone in their UTVs.
At exactly +27 seconds in the SECOND of these first three videos ( Video 0630131533 ), The ‘roll-cage’ and back storage section of a UTV suddenly slips into view in the very bottom left corner of the video.
Only KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell’s UTV ( with the red hood and fenders ) had a roll-cage.
Jason Clawson’s UTV had no such roll-cage ( at least not on that day ).
So whoever is shooting this video ( 0630131533 ) of that in-progress burnout operation up there on Model Creek Road was standing in the middle of the road… but also standing NEXT to this UTV with the roll-cage that we can now see was right there next to him.
At the very end of this video… you can even see the Nomex-shirt ( elbow? ) of whoever was standing to the cameraman’s LEFT briefly come into view. So that is proof that there was at least one other person ( with a Nomex shirt on ) standing to the LEFT of whoever was filming this particular video.
In the NEXT video with filename 0630131534 ( the THIRD of these first 3 videos in the new release )… the camera is now MOVING BACKWARDS as it films the men conducting more of the burnout operation.
The camera perspective is now from the RIGHT-CENTER of the road, and not from DEAD-CENTER in the road like the other two videos that precede this one.
At exactly +13 seconds into this THIRD video ( 0630131534 )… we again suddenly see part of the same UTV seen in the previous video to the LEFT of the camera… and it, too, is now ‘creeping forward’ on the road.
However… THIS time… we actually do see the RED FENDERS of the UTV which means it was most probably KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell’s UTV. I haven’t actually seen ANY other UTVs on the fire that day that had a RED hood and RED fenders like Yowell’s did.
Some of the GEAR that is in the back of this RED-fendered UTV also matches what can be seen later on in other views of Yowell’s UTV over on Shrine Road in the M2U00xxx video series.
But there is more.
At the very END of this video… just for a moment… we seem to ALSO see the fender of Clawson’s all-olive-drab UTV come into view in about the mid-left-center-bottom of the video as the ‘movement’ of the camera actually also seems to ‘pick up speed’ a little.
Seems to be proof that BOTH of the ‘Prescott Three’ UTVs were actually right there up on Model Creek Road… with Jason Clawson actively driving his and KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell actively driving his… so that only leaves Aaron Hulburd with ‘hands free’ to be the one filming the burnout.
So here is what I think all this proves…
1) After Jason Clawson and KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell unloaded their UTVs from their trailers up there where they were parked near the ICP… all 3 of ‘The Prescott Three’ headed up to the Model Creek Road area in the TWO UTVs.
2) Once there… Aaron Hulburd exited KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell’s RED-fendered UTV and was then standing in the middle of the dirt road and began filming this ‘burnout’ operation coming TOWARDS them.
3) In the SECOND video… Yowell and his RED-fendered UTV ( with roll-cage ) was to Hulburd’s LEFT while he was filming down the road, and Jason Clawson’s all-olive-drab UTV ( with no roll cage ) was actually there to Hulburd’s RIGHT, but never comes into view in this video.
4) In the THIRD video… Hulburd has now SAT on the BACK of Jason Clawson’s UTV, and he is still filming the ‘burnout’ operation coming towards them… but now BOTH Yowell and Clawson are driving BOTH UTV’s slowly forward, side-by-side, in order to stay ahead of the approaching burnout operation. At the end of the video… Jason Clawson picks up speed a little and that is why we suddenly see the RED fender of Yowell’s UTV come into view for a moment. Clawson got a little ‘ahead’ of Yowell who was also creeping forward in his UTV on the LEFT side of the video and that’s when we see Yowell’s RED fender appear there.
This still doesn’t FULLY explain why these videos do NOT match the resolution of Aaron Hulburd’s other ‘Helmet Cam’ videos… or why these videos use a DATE/TIME stamp for a filename and the others ones use the M2U00xxx filename convention… but I think we can take a pretty darn good guess at that, now.
Aaron Hulburd had some OTHER device with him capable of shooting movies and THAT is what he was using to shoot these FIRST three videos that we can now see.
It also makes sense that it would be Aaron Hulburd filming this ‘burnout’ operation up there on Model Creek Road. He is a career ‘Fuels Specialist’ for the Prescott National Forest… and this ‘burnout’ is exactly the sort of thing he would be interested in recording on film. Yowell and Clawson were just driving the two UTVs at that point.
I do believe we ARE looking at least TWO different ‘devices’ used to shoot the video that has appeared in the latest ‘evidence dump’ from USFS… but they BOTH probably belonged to Aaron Hulburd.
So that begs a new question which is similar to the one that has finally ‘shaken loose’ these other ‘Helmet Cam’ videos.
Whatever OTHER ‘video/audio’ capable device Hulburd might have been using to shoot these ‘burnout operation’ videos… was that REALLY the ONLY time he shot any videos or captured any radio transmissions that day with THAT ‘other’ device?
That is what the new USFS release would have us believe… the same way they wanted us to believe that the original ‘Helmet-Cam’ MAYDAY footage was the ONLY time Hulburd used his Helmet-Cam that day, as well.
I do NOT trust the US Forestry Service ( or Arizona Forestry ).
There could still be MORE videos just from that ‘other’ device Hulburd appears to have been using that day to shoot the burnout operation on Model Creek Road.
As I originally said that it was NOT CREDIBLE that the original MAYDAY footage could have been the ONLY time a true-blue videophile like Aaron Hulburd would have actually USED his Helmet Camera that day ( and it turns out my instincts were correct )… I also do NOT believe that if Hulburd had another video/audio capable device with him that day that he would have ONLY used it that ONE time there on Model Creek Road.
** A WORD ABOUT THE ORIGINAL FOIA REQUEST AND WHAT ENDED UP ‘RELEASED’…
When ‘InvestigativeMEDIA’ issued that FOIA request directly to the Prescott National Forest it was specifically asking for ‘Helmet Camera Video’ that was taken by any PNF employee who had worked the Yarnell Hill Fire.
Prescott National Forest obviously then had an ‘Oh Shit’ moment… and they immediately FORWARDED this valid FOIA request on to their ‘parent company’, the US Forestry Service.
In the letter that InvestigativeMEDIA got back from the USFS that was basically just ‘acknowledging’ the receipt of the FOIA request originally directed to Prescott National Forest… something got ‘mixed up’ as per what the actual REQUEST was.
Here is exactly what the ‘letter of receipt’ from USFS said…
—————————————————————————–
Dear Mr. Dougherty:
This letter acknowledges receipt of your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request dated October 20, 2014, which was received in the Washington Office (WO) FOIA Service Center, Office of Regulatory and Management Services on October 21, 2014.
You requested access to the complete, unedited video taken by Prescott National Forest firefighters on June 30, 2013 during the Yarnell Hill Fire.
(snip)
Sincerely,
/s/ Jeffrey Jasper for
GEORGE VARGAS
Freedom of Information Act/Privacy Act Officer
( US Forestry Service Logo appears here )
—————————————————————————–
Notice that the letter of receipt no longer specifically says that the FOIA request is for ‘Helmet Camera’ video ( only ).
So that is why those first THREE videos were probably included in this specific response to InvestigativeMEDIA’s original FOIA request for ‘Helmet Camera Video’.
When it hit the USFS… the ‘Helmet Camera’ specific part of the request had gotten ‘lost in the translation’ so now the request ‘morphed’ into one that was requesting ALL video(s) that might have been shot by a PNF employee on the Yarnell Hill Fire.
So that’s why the other three ‘Non-Helmet-Camera’ videos also got ‘popped out of the darkness’ here and added to the beginning of the list of videos.
Whether or not this really is ALL of the ‘video shot by any PNF employee who was at the Yarnell fire’ still remains to be seen… but I think this proves WHY those other three Non-Helmet Camera videos probably ended up included in THIS release. They weren’t specifically what you could call ‘Helmet Camera’ videos… but they WERE videos taken by a PNF employee ( Hulburd ) in Yarnell on June 30, 2013.
** A WORD ABOUT THESE FILENAMES
I am feeling the need to mention something about the filenames for these first three videos in the 21 just released by USFS.
The filenames for these first 3 videos ( as released ) are…
0630131532
0630131533
0630131534
It is pretty much ‘normal’ for a lot of video/audio capable devices to use this
MONTH + DAY + YEAR + HOUR + MINUTE style format for auto-naming the files
being saved to the memory card.
That in no way really tells us exactly what KIND of device was being used.
However… something is still a little odd.
If any device is using this kind of DATE + TIME format for actually naming files…
it is bascially IMPOSSIBLE for it to really only have been…
MONTH + DAY + YEAR + HOUR + MINUTE
It pretty much HAD to have been at least…
MONTH + DAY + YEAR + HOUR + MINUTE + SECOND.
Here is why.
You can’t possible expect a file naming scheme for a photo/video capable device to work when it can’t stamp the filenames down to at least the SECOND.
Anyone could take multiple photos/videos within a one minute timeframe and you also cannot possibly ever have TWO filenames on a memory card ( or even a hard drive ) with the EXACT same filename(s).
So if that device really was never using the SECONDS value for the filename stamping… it would have also have had to have been able to distinguish files all taken within the same minute with some kind of NAMING convention like this…
0630131532
0630131532(1)
0630131532(2)
0630131532(3)
Etc…
EACH of these first THREE files in this latest USFS evidence dump are all mysteriously 29.8 seconds long ( to within a few hundreths of a second ), and that is still not possible to achieve with the human hand working a shutter button… but I also still have no good explanation for that.
We would need to know more about the actual device in use to know more about that and whether it indicates any kind of ‘tampering’ with the original videos.
But… I still get the feeling that we are not seeing the ACTUAL (original) filenames for these first 3 videos in the recent ‘evidence dump’.
Each video is 29.8 ( Call it 30 ) seconds long… but the timestamps are all on consecutive MINUTE values ( 1532, 1533, 1534 ).
In order to believe these filenames are all exactly the way they originally were on the device’s memory card… that means we also have to believe that Aaron Hulburd ( or whoever took them ) also PAUSED for ( at least ) 30 seconds in-between each video filmed, and never tried to shoot anything that had the same MINUTE value for a start time.
I guess that’s possible… but regardless… something still tells me we are still not seeing the SECONDS value of the original filenames… which means these filenames themselves have been (essentiallly) ‘altered from the originals’.
That would be even more reason to question whether this latest ‘evidence dump’ from USFS really represents the original material they have in their possession… and whether it is, in fact, a full legal fulfillment of a valid FOIA request.
** MORE ABOUT THE UTVS
The rest of this is just for completeness sake and shows how we CAN know what KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell’s and Jason Clawson’s UTVs really looked like.
The new M2U00xxx videos also finally give us better looks at the UTVs that belonged to KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell and Jason Clawson that day… which has made it easier to identify them as the same ones that can seen for a few frames in the other 0630131532, 33 and 34 videos.
The M2U00267 video is 2 minutes and 18 seconds long.
At +1:36, Clawson, Hulburd and Yowell turn around and start walking backing EAST to where their 2 UTV’s are parked back in the actual St. Joseph Shrine parking log.
The rest of the video is just them walking all the way back to where theri UTV’s are parked and the closer they get… the better you can see the 2 (parked) UTV’s.
The one on the LEFT belongs to KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell and is the one with the RED hood and fenders on it. It has BOTH a roll-cage and a windshield frame on it. It is also the one with two front seats and the one that Aaron Hulburd also travels when they all move around.
The UTV on the RIGHT is Jason Clawson’s. It appears to be pretty much the same make/model as Yowell’s with identical front grill and headlights, but it does NOT have either a roll-cage or a windshield frame installed ( at least not on that day ). It is all olive-drab. It also appears to have some ‘gear’ in the front which would make it hard for two people to travel in it… so that is probably why Aaron Hulburd was always traveling in the other UTV with Yowell whenever they were ‘moving around’ in these UTVs that day.
At about +2:09 or +2:11 ( in video M2U00267 ) is the best closeup view of BOTH of these UTVs sitting side-by-side.
When they reach the 2 UTV’s… KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell moves towards the one on the left ( with the red fenders ) to get into the driver’s seat.Aarron Hulburd ( still filming ) is right behind Yowell and gets very close to him at this point and this is when you can clearly see that Hulburd’s camera has NOT been mounted on his Helmet for this video.
The camera lens is actually at about the same height as Yowell’s right elbow… which means it was probably clipped to Hulburd’s front shirt pocket while he was filming this M2U00267 video.
So whatever Aaron Hulburd was using to shoot these M2U00xxx videos that have come to be known as the ‘Helmet Cam’ videos probably wasn’t an actual brand-name Helmet Camera at all.
It is more likely it is just a device that is easily CLIPPED to things like a Helmet Bracket, or a short pocket, or whatever.
It it still important to know exactly WHAT device that was… what KIND of EXIF metadata SHOULD have been present in the video files themselves… and why NONE of that metadata has been included in what was supposed to be a valid fulfillment of a fully legal FOIA request.
Wow… I think WordPress really is starting to go brain-dead again.
That ENTIRE comment up above with new information about the first 3 newly released videos was NOT supposed to appear where it did.
It was submitted as a new ‘parent comment’ and just somehow showed up here as well.
See above for the ‘parent comment’ version of this same posting with better formatting.
That’s why I’m no longer posting anything of substance here until the new chapter comes up.
I’m glad I got to go to an awesome dance performance before writing that.
And, I think what was happening over the west edge of the fire, as Granite Mountain was hiking down into their doom in that bowl full of explosive fuels, was even more complicated than what was happening over Shrine Road and the Youth Camp.
And was all this complicated fire/weather/topography PREDICTABLE?
IMHO a resounding YES and NO!!
There you have it from the High Priestess of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta Weather Wizards.
Marti… see below.
The atmospheric scientists at the University of Arizona were actually ‘up early’ on Sunday morning, June 30, 2013 and doing what they do.
Running computer models.
One of them predicted EXACTLY what was going to happen… right to within the HOUR of when it actually came to pass.
NONE of those ‘computer models’ ever made it through proper channels ( that day ) to the people who really needed to know about it… such as Arizona Forestry Dispatch.
So, did I get it right?
Yes I did!
Thanks dad!
Somebody needs to actually really investigate this fire.
Well… from a meteorological viewpoint… people HAVE.( and given its HISTORIC nature… will continue to do so ).
The following is just ONE ( excellent ) professional report on what really happened that day. I’ve never seen so many detailed images, maps, charts and explanations about what happened that day all in one place…
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-yarnell-hill-fire-meteorological.html
From the article…
————————————————————-
The Yarnell Hill Fire: The Meteorological Origins
This morning I took a look at the meteorology associated with the Yarnell Hill fire in Arizona on Sunday, and the more I dug into it, the more disturbed I got. You will see why as I explain.
From what I can glean from news reports, the fire blew up around 4-5 PM Sunday (June 30th). A nearby observation site (RAWS station) was located about 5 miles away. The observations, shown below, indicates a profound wind shift from south to north around 5 PM associated with a sudden increase of wind gusts to just over 40 mph. Solar radiation dropped rapidly at the same time, indicating a sudden increase in cloudiness.
The origin of this sudden increase in wind is clear: outflow from a line of convection (thunderstorms) that had developed during the preceding hours and which was moving to the southwest. Here are some satellite images for the hours preceding and during the terrible accident (the circle indicates the location of the fire).
( Series of Satellite images… all explained in detail ).
( snip )
There is often an outflow of cooler air moving away from convection…the leading edge is known as a gust front (see figure). Downdraft air from thunderstorms spread out as it hits the surface, producing strong winds. It appears that there was such strong outflow from this convection that caused the winds to shift rapidly from southerly to northerly and to increase suddenly in speed (to 43 mph at the nearby station).
A measure of the potential for strong downdrafts and gust fronts is something called downdraft convective available potential energy (DCAPE). The sounding at Flagstaff has values of around 1600 J per Kg, which is very high (anything above 1000 can produce strong downdrafts).
(snip)
So it is apparent what occurred ..first the winds were from the south, followed by a rapid shift of 180 degrees, sudden increase of winds to over 40 mph, and the fire blew up and reversed direction.
(snip)
You can see why I find this disaster so unsettling. Hours before the incident it was clear there was a real threat…satellite and radar showed developing convection to the north that was moving south towards the fire. High-resolution numerical models showed a threat. Were there any meteorologists working the fire? If not, why not? This terrible tragedy needs to be reviewed carefully.
A number of media outlets called the strong winds unpredictable and random. This is not correct, as shown by the information I provided above.
————————————————————-
Followup…
The really SAD part, as well… is that not only do post-fire examinations of the conditions prove that everything that happened was perfectly predictable that day…
…it was all also perfectly predicted THAT MORNING… by meteorologists at the Universty of Arizona who were ‘up early’ that morning and doing what they do… running computer models.
The computer models ( that morning ) got it ‘right’ to within one hour of what actually ended up happening.
Sadly… this information never made it out to Arizona Forestry that day.
The USATODAY news article where this was first reported…
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/02/yarnell-hill-fire-investigation/2483571/
From the article…
———————————————————-
The weather combined with fuel loads to create a deadly combination.
Meteorologists at the University of Arizona in Tucson ran models the morning of the fire predicting to within an hour the terrifying conditions the hotshots would confront.
“One model showed 45-knot (52 mph) winds and rapidly changing wind direction. It is a worst-case scenario for firefighting. They were the most dangerous conditions you could have in Arizona,” said research meteorologist Mike Leuthold at the university’s Institute of Atmospheric Physics.
In the real world, winds from the southwest were gusting at 15 to 25 mph at 4:01 p.m. PST Sunday at the monitoring station near the blaze. An hour later, winds were gusting at 30 to 47 mph from the northeast.
The worst was coming. During the monsoon — a meteorological event that happens during the summer throughout the Southwest — the searing desert temperatures force columns of hot air high into the atmosphere, Leuthold and National Weather Service meteorologists said.
The higher these plumes climb, the more chance they have for lifting embers and dispersing them widely. They also increase the chance of dry lightning strikes.
On Sunday, meteorologists measured the thermals as high as 22,000 feet, halfway through the atmosphere. The readings were among the highest they’d ever seen. In early fire reports, lightning was blamed for starting the Yarnell Hill Fire on Friday. And in Rim Country and near Prescott, the thunderstorms bring massive downdrafts of air — pushing huge gusts of air and reversing winds.
That’s exactly what happened Sunday.
Brian Klimowski, the National Weather Service’s meteorologist in chief in the Flagstaff division, said local topography could channel winds into even stronger gusts, making fire behavior more unpredictable.
The Weather Service provides twice-daily fire weather forecasts for each region. In large fires, the service also provides spot forecasts for specific fire locations upon request.
Firefighters did make forecast requests for the Yarnell Hill Fire, which Klimowski’s team updated twice a day, he said. In addition, the Weather Service also called firefighters twice Sunday afternoon warning about the likelihood of thunderstorms and high winds.
—————————————————————-
So it is known that ‘regular weather reports’ were being delivered… but somehow the actual ‘computer model’ that was done that morning was never fully passed on to the people who needed to know about it.
It was RIGHT ( to within the hour ) about EXACTLY what was going to happen.
“Meteorologists at the University of Arizona in Tucson ran models the morning of the fire predicting to within an hour the terrifying conditions the hotshots would confront.”
That’s really, really sad.
Hmm. I hadn’t seen THIS one. Thanks!
“Brian Klimowski, the National Weather Service’s meteorologist in chief in the Flagstaff division, said local topography could channel winds into even stronger gusts, making fire behavior more unpredictable.”
That’s what I meant by, Was it predictable? YES and NO.
You can predict, generally, what’s going to happen. They ran a NUMBER of models. That’s how you get the PROBABILITIES.
The topography shapes it on the ground, the localized micro-effects. That’s what you can’t predict from that kind of modeling.
You can’t predict that at 4:22 the wind would be blowing through the Youth Camp from the west at 45 mph.
You can’t predict that it would take five more minutes for the wind to be blowing through the tops of the trees at about 30 mph as Aaron filmed them from the Shrine.
You can’t predict exactly when the wind, as the fire is rotating through that topography, would turn the fire the additional 30 degrees or so that it took to blow the fire right up the bowl at the exact time it spared “main street” Yarnell (where it was headed about ten minutes before that, and hit Glen Ilah, instead.
You can’t predict when the fire, pushing right toward the Incident Command Post at Model Creek School, will turn just enough to spare the Post and start burning more eastward to threaten the homes on Sickles Road, so that you have to scramble a bunch of last-minute resources to get them down there in time to work with retardant drops.
But you CAN predict, after observing the fire and the general topography from the air, as Bravo 3 did at around noon, that, given the most-likely combination of monsoon weather plus topography, that combination would EASILY cause the fire to change direction, and start burning UPHILL, finally, towards Yarnell “that afternoon.”
Also, did you catch that little nugget about the NIMO? That’s the first I ever read about THAT.
“The investigative team will consist of up to 10 people recruited from around the country from local, state and federal agencies, she [Carrie Dennett AZF] said.
The group will include a team leader, a fire-behavioral analyst who can describe how a fire accelerates, a fire-operations specialist, a safety specialist and a person to document the information, said Judith Downing of the U.S. Forest Service. A report will be published when the work is finished.
Downing, who arrived Monday in Arizona with a seven-member National Incident Management Organization team to assist in the operation, said the investigation will be independent.
“Our role is not to do the investigation,” Downing said. “Our role is to provide support to the state.””
I wonder if “assisting” included sitting the BR Hotshots down in a room and having them fill out their unit logs and gathering up, while interviewing the Peeples Valley Crew, the cd with the photos and videos Brandon took,
Ahem. Nothing to see here!
And I would LOVE to be able to predict exactly what ADOSH is going to do next.
Actually, that’s the article from which I first got my understanding of what happened.
You wrote:
“You can see why I find this disaster so unsettling. Hours before the incident it was clear there was a real threat”
Heck, the photos of the “fire on the mountain” the night before “the incident”, which everybody in Yarnell was watching, made it clear there was “a real threat”!
Obviously Marti I would graduate you from Fire Weather 101
But you are qualified to teach it…
And yes all fore have a meteorologist assigned to the Fire
can’t remember his name from earlier but he sent the afternoon report predicting the increased activity no surprise on fire weather info some did not heed it.
Yes. That was Byron Kimball, the Fire Behavior Analyst.
They didn’t have a Fire Weather Meteorologist (I forget the technical IMT title).
Type 2 SHORT teams don’t include one of them.
Reply to Marti Reed post on
November 16, 2014 at 8:07 am
>> Marti said…
>>
>> You wrote:
>>
>> “You can see why I find this disaster so unsettling.
>> Hours before the incident it was clear there was
>> a real threat”
>>
>> Heck, the photos of the “fire on the mountain” the
>> night before “the incident”, which everybody in
>> Yarnell was watching, made it clear there
>> was “a real threat”!
And Darrell Willis’ own Unit Log entries between 1:30 AM and 3:30 AM prove that he was noting how ACTIVE the fire was… even at that hour of the morning.
In his 3:30 AM entry Willis also acknowledges first hearing that a ‘team’ was being put together and he was informed they would all be arriving in about 3 1/2 hours ( 7:00 AM )… but no one there in Yarnell overnight really seemed all that concerned about what TYPE of team it was… or whether it was going to be adequate… or whether this ‘highly active fire even in the middle of the night’ should have made any difference about the horsepower of the TEAM being ordered up for the next day.
Also… just for the record…
I think I messed up the reprint of that article up above.
The article is actually “quoted” all the way down to the dashed lines and not where I typed any (snip) markers.
I ( me, personally ) did NOT say…
“You can see why I find this disaster so unsettling.
Hours before the incident it was clear there was
a real threat”
That was actually still the professional meteorologist that was studying the fire talking there.
Even HE was astounded that more serious WARNINGS were not given out to the men who were in harm’s way that day.
Yes. Darrell was seriously concerned. Maybe that had to do with him keeping close touch with Jason, sensing the wrong decision had been made the night before, and knowing Bea’s team (which he was actually a part of) was having to come down to fill in all the holes they could.
Still bugz me, however, that, given that concern, he wasted all that time and resources defending what was, essentially an indefensible space.
That seems to me to be seriously non-strategic, all things considered.
And I have a hard time believing he didn’t hear that noon-ish B 3 communique to Rance that the fire was going to reverse itself that afternoon and head to Yarnell.
Especially since B 3 (and possibly also Air Attack Rory Collins before him) was communicating with him on Air To Ground regarding the retardant drops.
I think he most likely would have been, relatively speaking, prioritizing Air To Ground on his radio.
And also, that makes it make even more sense that the Three Prescotteers would have headed over to film what was essentially Darrell’s Firing Operation on Model Creek Road.
The 2:30 video was capturing radio coms related to Darrell’s operation at Double A Bar Ranch.
He was paying attention to what Darrell, a Bea Day Team OPS, was doing,
I bet Darrell was one of the very first people Jason got in touch with when he got to the fire.
I agree with everything you said here, but to me the emphasis is that none of this was that unusual, either. I experienced gusts of 50+ yesterday, for instance, and it doesn’t even make for good beer conversation because it’s part of life. And they changed direction from time to time. Storms roll off the rim there regularly that time of year. That storm rolled off almost exactly according to forecast, winds included. Extreme fire behavior is correct, but not extreme weather, unless one characterizes a normal, forecast storm that behaved as expected as extreme.
Exactly.
But see what I wrote above about what you CAN predict and what you CAN’T predict.
I have an old photo of my dad, sitting on a log in the Pecos Wilderness, where we were on horseback, staring at a thunderstorm developing over a ridge we had planned to cross to get back to our camp. He was trying to figure out whether we should stick to our plan, or go a different, lower, longer way. Which we did.
The next day, we rode over that ridge and found, right next to the trail, an exploded pine tree.
He told me that photo was of the moment, when he finally realized, after about 30 years of weather forecasting in the southwest, he couldn’t really predict the behavior of a thunderstorm in the southwest. It was all just too complicated.
That was also about thirty years after he flew planes in and out of typhoons in the Pacific in order to do the math in order to produce the calculations which are still used today to fly in and out of and around typhoons and hurricanes.
Actually, come to think of it, we used to have long irony-filled conversations about which was more unpredictable–weather behavior or people behavior.
We mostly agreed it was a draw.
Reply to Marti Reed post on November 15, 2014 at 2:18 pm
NOTE: This has been brought up down below from a thread running out of room.
>> Marti said…
>>
>> And too bad we don’t have those disappeared photos and videos
>> from the Peeple’s Valley Crew. I’m sure they tell a wind story, too.
Yes. It’s unfortunate. That is still all VERY important evidence and no one seems to have any idea WHO actually ‘collected’ it all and WHERE it all ever ‘disappeared’ to.
However… the evidence we CAN still ‘see’ from the Peeples Valley Firefighters who also almost lost their lives in Yarnell that day DOES, in fact… tell a ‘wind story’ of its own.
From the ‘Yarnell Hill Recovery Group’ page – ‘Our Stories’ section…
http://www.yarnellhillrecoverygroup.org/our_stories.html
Peeples Valley Firefighter Bob Brandon ( in his own words, and not
filtered through any reporter or media outlet )…
——————————————————————————————
I had an alarm that we had set up. I was going to turn the siren on and start pressing the siren so they could hear us, and that meant to abandon and come back and we’ll get out. Well, when I started the alarm, the Incident Commander for our area came pulling up, and he said, “I want you to get these trucks out of here.”
I says, “I can’t do that.”
He said, “You have to do it now.”
And I said, “No. There’s six men still like a mile out into the forest and they need to come back to this safe zone, because this is where they know it is.”
And he said, “No. I’m telling you to leave now.”
I told my lookout, I said, “Go to their trucks and put the keys in the ignition and start the trucks so when they come running out of the woods and they get to their truck they don’t have to look for their keys.”
He said, “We’re not going to leave,” and I said, “Yeah, we’re going to leave but we’re going to drive very slow.”
Well he didn’t want to and I told him, “We have to. This is what we have to do.”
The next instant, the fire dropped right over the top of us like a gigantic hand and everything around us was on fire. It was pitch black. Matt could not even see the hood of the truck. You could see nothing. And there were fires and fireballs and flames in every direction.
And I said, “Start driving very slow.”
I turned on all my lights and started driving very slowly down this little path back to the Shrine. That was approximately 2 ½ miles. So we were just picking our way, really slow hoping that somebody would get to us or see the truck and get in.
Well we drove all the way to the Shrine and about that time the Shrine was on fire. The hills were on fire around us and we met the IC and we told him that we’re not going any further.
We said, “We need to get our six men that are back there.” We didn’t have any radio contact with them because it was so loud. It was like being in the back of a jet aircraft on a runway.
So we were shouting at each other. About that time two Peeples Valley firefighters popped out through the black. And we got them over to the trucks and I said, “There’s still four more.”
So he jumped back up to his truck and went back up the road. And he was met with the ones coming out with their trucks. So we all did meet at the Shrine.
Our next point of deployment was to get to the Ranch House so we could make sure everybody’s safe. So we slowly drove our trucks to the Ranch House and met the congestion and confusion on Highway 89 with all the people being told to get out of town.
We were quite nervous at that. The winds were probably blowing between 40 and 50 mph, and we told them there’s not much for us to do. We made it to the Ranch House just when the fire came over the top of the highway by the Assembly of God Church and went up around the Ranch House.
So we started getting with the guys to fight the fire there. At that time, they were trying to set up a triage for anybody that got burned or suffered any trauma from this at the Ranch House, but the winds were just too great.
————————————————————————————–
Bob Brandan reports…
“The winds were blowing 40 and 50 mph”
“They were trying to set up triage… but the winds were just too great”.
** TONY SCIACCA WAS THE MYSTERIOUS ‘IC’ GIVING ORDERS TO BRANDON?
Also notice something interesting here.
We’ve never quite been able to identify who this mysterious ‘Incident Commander’ was who was telling Brandon to basically ‘abandon his own men’ and ‘get those trucks out of here now’.
We can NOW see… in the recently released Hulburd footage… that it is, indeed, ‘Big Dog’ Tony Sciacca standing right there ( in his white helmet ) alongside Clawson, Hulburd and Yowell in the St. Joseph Shrine parking lot.
Brandon recalls TWO encounters with this person that he was (apparently) mis-identifying as an ‘Incident Commander’. Brandon may have simply misunderstood who that was because he might have had a ‘white helmet’ on… which he hadn’t seen so far that day in that Youth Camp location, so he was assuming he was some kind of ‘Incident Commander’ for Yarnell.
Brandon describes his FIRST encounter with this ‘Incident Commander’ person as
“…the Incident Commander for our area came pulling up, and he said, ‘I want you to get these trucks out of here.’ ”
Brandon then describes the SECOND encounter with this (same) ‘Incident Commander’ person…
“Well we drove all the way to the Shrine and about that time the Shrine was on fire. The hills were on fire around us and we met the IC and we told him that we’re not going any further.”
So now Brandon is saying they ‘met’ this (same) IC person again right there in the parking lot of the St. Joseph Shrine after slowly driving the trucks out.
Well… according to the new Hulburd footage… that would be Tony Sciacca ( with his white helmet on ).
We can now SEE him ( Sciacca ) in the new Hulburd footage standing right there, exactly where Bob Brandon says he ‘met up’ with him in the St. Joseph Shrine parking lot.
So… another mystery solved ( perhaps )?
The mysterious ‘Incident Commander’ person described by Bob Brandon as the one telling him to move the vehicles and, essentially, ABANDON his own men was, in fact, none other than ‘Big Dog’ Tony Sciacca himself?
Hmmm. Interesting catch.
I’m gonna have to leave soon, but quick thoughts.
I still have a REALLY hard time imagining Tony Sciacca doing that. He’s just not that kind of person or Incident Commander. Seriously. He let 15K extra acres burn on the Slide Fire (amidst a great public hue and cry about that) so he could keep the fire-fighters safe instead of having them fight the fire in the canyons.
And I don’t remember anything in his interview (off the top of my head) about going all the way up to the Youth Camp. He said he was, basically, trying to get all the crazy civilians to get out of Shrine Road.
And, quite frankly, to be perfectly honest, I’m not totally trusting Brandon’s account. There are like, what, five different accounts of this thing?
Which one is the correct one? Who knows??
This was a crew that Gary Cordes ordered to begin evacuating at 3:50. Apparently, according to Brandon’s account, they didn’t do that.
I don’t know how we can say anything definitive about this with the conflicted stories that are out there.
Reply to Marti Reed post on November 15, 2014 at 5:49 pm
>> Marti said…
>>
>> I still have a REALLY hard time imagining Tony Sciacca doing that.
>> He’s just not that kind of person or Incident Commander. Seriously.
I don’t know him. I can’t make statements like that one way or the other.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> He let 15K extra acres burn on the Slide Fire (amidst a great public
>> hue and cry about that) so he could keep the fire-fighters safe
>> instead of having them fight the fire in the canyons.
I know that you developed quite a high level of respect for this Sciacca guy when you were following his performance on that ‘Slide’ fire… but that was AFTER Yarnell. Maybe Yarnell itself is what caused him to be so cautious on ‘Slide’.
I would actually ASSUME it did. I mean… c’mon.
It’s not every day you are the designated Safety Officer on a fire… you show up LATE… and 19 men DIE on YOUR ‘Safety Officer’ watch.
It must have had SOME effect on him.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> And I don’t remember anything in his interview (off the top of
>> my head) about going all the way up to the Youth Camp. He
>> said he was, basically, trying to get all the crazy civilians to
>> get out of Shrine Road.
That’s why I included the word ‘perhaps’ up above as to whether this ‘mystery’ about the ‘Incident Commander’ *might* now have been solved.
In his ADOSH interview Sciacca DOES say he ‘drove up that canyon and saw the Granite Mountain Buggies’. and he seems to mention seeing them ‘parked’…
But this is all about TIMING.
If Sciacca drove ‘up that canyon’ BEFORE the actual vehicle evacuations, then that means he saw the Granite Mountain buggies where they were parked at the Youth Camp… and that DOES place him exactly where he needed to be to be the one barking those orders to Bob Brandon and basically telling him to abandon his own men.
Don’t forget there IS a photo of someone in a WHITE Helmet standing all the way back there where the Granite Mountain buggies were parked and he’s interacting back there with Frisby and Brown in the Polaris Ranger. We still don’t know who THAT ‘white helmet’ really is.
However… if what Sciacca means by ‘seeing the Granite Mountain buggies’ means he ONLY saw them on their way OUT… then maybe he really never did get any farther than where we now see him in Hulburd’s video standing there in the St. Joseph Shrine parking lot.
Only some more interviewing of Sciacca and/or the final appearance of some of that Peeples Valley evidence can really nail down who was really telling Bob Brandon to basically ‘abandon his men’.
If Sciacca was never back there at all… then WHO was the guy in the white helmet who we KNOW was ‘back there’ at the Youth Camp in that photo?
Anyway… here is exactly what Sciacca said to ADOSH about all this…
From page 15 of Tony Sciacca’s ADOSH interview…
——————————————————–
649 A: So when I – yeah, when I came around, trying to figure out who was in
650 Yarnell when that fire was coming there I wanted to see…
651
652 Q1: Right.
653
654 A: I pulled in. Sheriff had some evacuations going on.
655
656 Q1: Right.
657
658 A: And I drove up that canyon, that’s when I saw the Blue Ridge and the Granite
659 Mountain buggies.
660
661 Q1: Yeah.
662
663 Q2: Where were they? Could you – do you…
664
665 A: Uh, they were, uh, they were one canyon over from where the ranch house
666 was.
667
668 Q2: Okay.
669
670 A: That’s, uh…
672 ((Crosstalk))
673
674 Q1: Can you point on the map for that?
675
676 A: I don’t know if I can or not on that one.
677
678 Q2: Well if you know, here’s – this is the deployment site. Here’s the ranch
679 houses.
680
681 A: Okay, so it would have been up in the back of this community right – I believe
682 s- I was told by, uh, one of the Engine Captains there was a piece of dozer line
683 that I never saw that was in there some place and they – I saw – when I was up
684 in this little draw here, Blue Ridge came out with, uh, looked like they were
685 three engines, a water tender, Blue Ridge Hotshot buggies and Granite
686 Mountain Hotshot buggies. And everybody was driving out.
687
688 Q1: Coming out?
689
690 A: Coming out. And I was like, well I guess everybody’s in the buggies. You
691 don’t ask those questions.
692
693 Q1: Yeah, yeah.
694
695 Q2: You saw the – the Granite Mountain buggies come out?
696
697 A: Yeah well they were parked and Blue Ridge was bringing them out.
698
699 Q2: Blue Ridge was helping?
700
701 A: Yeah.
——————————————————–
By the way… this is a SIDENOTE but as long as I’m quoting Sciacca’s ADOSH interview… here is where Sciacca himself says the ‘outflow winds’ had most definitely ALREADY arrived and were ‘driving the fire’. on the very next page of his ADOSH interview transcript.
( As if we needed any more proof it WAS an intense wind-driven event )…
——————————————————–
766 Q2: Uh, firing. Did – were – were – were you – did you notice firing or what they
767 were doing for – were they bringing the thing down the – the east flank?
768
769 A: Was never engaged to that level. Was never up – like I said, my – by the time
770 I got done with Darrell and got around, it was already, you know, the winds
771 had kind of set in from a – the outflows had set in. And it was moving fire
772 pretty fast.
773
774 Q1: Right.
775
776 A: Um, toward, uh, toward the highway and then toward – you could see it was
777 coming in flanking into Yarnell.
778
779 Q1: Yeah.
780
781 Q2: So it went – it went east but then more south?
782
783 A: It kind of co- the wind kind of came out of the north, uh, yeah north, northeast
784 and just kind of pushed that fire to the southeast, uh, quarter toward the road
785 right into – right into the backside of Yarnell.
786
787 Q1: Right.
788
789 A: I mean it was – it was aggressive fire behavior for the chaparral.
790
791 Q1: Yeah.
792
793 Q2: Mm-hm.
794
795 A: Very aggressive.
796
797 Q1: Yeah. What kind of flame lengths were you seeing there, Tony?
798
799 A: Probably 30-60 feet in most of that stuff.
800
801 Q1: Uh-huh.
802
803 A: And, uh, you know, at the peak when I left Gary, we had a couple of gusts that
804 would just lay it over. And just, you could see the preheating and just, you
805 know, it was rapid. Rapid rates of spread.
807 Q1: Uh-huh.
808
809 A: Being – being wind driven. It’s a wind driven fuel that chaparral is.
810
811 Q2: Yep.
812
813 A: Wind driven.
———————————————————
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> And, quite frankly, to be perfectly honest, I’m not totally trusting
>> Brandon’s account. There are like, what, five different accounts
>> of this thing?
>>
>> Which one is the correct one? Who knows??
Yes… but I ( personally ) do trust his account of this mysterious person he was mistaking for an ‘Incident Commander’ ordering him to move those vehicles.
He told that story to the Prescott News reporter and allowed it to be printed publicly… and his own public account on the Yarnell Recovery Group BLOG matches… so I assume he’s probably telling the truth about that part, anyway.
Even the new Hulburd videos now back up Brandon’s account of how they drove ‘slowly’ to the Shrine parking lot and the men ‘caught up with them’.
We can actually SEE that group of men ‘catching up’ to one of those trucks right there in Hulburd’s video… just as Brandon described it happening.
One of the men ( on foot ) actually gives kind of a “What the fuck??” arm gesture to the engine in front of them as they finally caught up with it.
That matches Brandon’s account of the men actually being PISSED when they arrived at the Youth Camp and discovered that the others had actually been forced to obey this mysterious ‘Incident Commander’ and they really did move the vehicles out of the Youth Camp where the poor guys running for their lives out of Harper Canyon had expected them to be.
I don’t know WHO that firefighter is in the new Hulburd video giving that “What the fuck??” gesture to the engine in front of him as he catches up to it. It’s hard to see his face.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> This was a crew that Gary Cordes ordered to begin evacuating
>> at 3:50. Apparently, according to Brandon’s account, they didn’t do that.
I think there’s a fair amount of CYA going on over that, yes.
It still could be that Cordes told Esquibel to take care of that… but he didn’t.
Brandon’s account that he SAW Blue Ridge coming (literally) hauling ass ‘out of the forest’ and he then wondered “They are the professionals and we are just volunteers… what are they not telling us?” indicates to me that even if someone was SUPPOSED to tell all those Peeples Valley FFs to ‘evacuate’ before then… no one ever did.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> I don’t know how we can say anything definitive about this
>> with the conflicted stories that are out there.
Well… see above. I think the new Hulburd videos at least sort of VERIFY Brandon’s account of how the men he was told to ‘abandon’ out there in Harper Canyon finally did ‘catch up with them’. Some of the new Hulburd video now provides visual evidence of that happening exactly the way Brandon described it.
As for the ‘race for their lives’ on the part of those men who were working out at that far end of Harper Canyon… and whether it really was ‘Darby Starr’ who ‘saved them’ ( and received an award for it )… the only way to sort that out is with more ‘focused’ interviews or testimony.
I agree the only way to know for sure is re-interviewing.
Which is why I keep hoping that whatever further investigations are in the pipeline, they don’t just investigate the deployment incident.
All the other various places in which people ALMOST got injured, maimed, or killed, need to be just as carefully investigated.
And, yes, I’ll go back and compare that photo with that video. Having a visual bead on what Tony looked like on that fire is really helpful.
But I’ll tell you, those white helmets can be misleading. The video of Cougan and Rance standing by a fence has a guy in a white helmet standing next to them. Unfortunately, there’s no timestamp on that video.
But I need to do a whole bunch of other things first.
I was out doing defensible space and gardening and I am thinking who am I to question folks that are retired or current professionals? I am just the desert walker.
Professional integrity and ethical behavior is crucial for personal credibility and professional success within the business world. I am not a part of that world. I am sorry to Elizabeth Nowicki, Marti Reed and Bow Powers for ever questioning you all. I am a very independent stubborn individual and I see this whole thing in a different light that more details are present just not shown.
I am sorry!
Bow- Bob
oops
NO APOLIGY NESSARY
I am not sorry and you should not be either Joy. We were there that day and have been there too many times since that weekend with elite firefighters and experts. They have advised us and when we had questions they answered them. I am confident in their answers.
We did attend the Yarnell committee on building the memorial to the 19 on Shrine Rd. in Yarnell. A noble idea though estimates are 180 grand and above. Chuck Tidy thinks he can find some help on that. They did say that they would mention the tradgedy of the aftermath of the fire as well considering that 33 deaths have occurred–add another yesterday. That one was due to lung problems. I should say that has to be way above norm for deaths considering that Yarnell has a population of only 645 by 2014 census. Joy says there are more she has not counted yet.
Now about that idea of a fellow going down into that basin in six minutes or so. That is indeed possible considering that he was full of adrenalin and knowing that his fellows were lying there burned to death. That same hike we took with Bruce Hanna and Bret Steurer of OSHA. The were trying to determine times of going down just as they were and approximately where the GMHS went down. Bret managed it in 22 minutes and we know he was in good physical condition since he also runs the marathon. Unfrotunately Bruce fell on the steep decline and his injury slowed him to 33 minutes and Joy was just ahead of him by 3 minutes.
Now going down in the black is much quicker than battling the boulders, brush and steepness that was there before the fire. Add 100F temperatures, a full pack of 40 pounds, a hard hat, and a bulky 30 pound chain saw and 18 men ahead of you and god only knows how many fell like Bret then you can imagine how slow progress had to have been.
Just chiming in with a few points here…
>> sonny said…
>>
>> Now about that idea of a fellow going down into that basin
>> in six minutes or so. That is indeed possible considering that
>> he was full of adrenalin and knowing that his fellows were
>> lying there burned to death.
At the moment Blue Ridge Captain Trueheart Brown arrived at the top of the saddle and the ‘Descent Point’ location… even DPS medic Eric Tarr ( who was now already standing down there at the deployment site ) says in his signed deposition that he (quote) “Saw some firefighters appear at the top of the ridge and I waved them down”.
Captain Brown did NOT know the men were dead, at that point.
I believe Captain Brown ( like many Hotshots ) also had some EMT training in his background.
So he basically THREW himself down that slope, at that point, perhaps thinking that some/all of those men WERE still alive and badly in need of anyone with any EMT training.
Trueheart Brown was also in extraordinary shape… even as Hotshots go.
He is/was an avid Bike Racer… and I don’t mean out for a Sunday drive.
He regularly participates in those grueling distance runs.
The new Hulburd footage also now shows us that when he and Brian Frisby were ‘breaking through’ the fireline on the ground rescue mission… they did NOT have ‘packs’ on… so it can also be assumed that when Captain Brown reached the Descent Point and RAN down that slope… it was without a pack on to slow him down in any way.
Did not know that about Brown – checked and he is a Cat 1 racer, i.e. VERY elite. Believe me, he is in shape.
Did not know that about Brown. Checked and he a cat 1 racer – i.e. VERY elite. Believe me, he is in shape.
Did not know that about Brown. Checked and he is a cat 1 racer, i.e. VERY elite. Believe me, he is in shape.
He’s not just out there ‘riding along with the big boys’.
He has actually WON a number of these ‘Type 1’ bicycling events.that he has participated in. That ain’t shabby.
You do not even get to be a Cat 1 racer without having some serious results. You have to earn it.
And I imagine he has done it training less than 6 months out of every year – most of those he would race against train year round. His results would suggest his race season is about 3 months long (although am not sure how much racing there is in Arizona in June through August). In the videos he looks like a cyclist – he is rail-thin.
You don’t own me an apology for anything!
We all have our different backgrounds, skill sets, perspectives, valuable knowledge, opinions, mistakes, values, hassle factors, emotional ways, anger and frustration thresholds etc.
That’s why when this conversation works, and everybody is treating everybody with respect, it really goes quite well. I think we’ve done an amazing job.
Even when we disagree.
That’s why I love doing this. It’s quite a remarkable campfire circle.
And I’m glad you’re here!
As we still try to ‘get our heads around’ exactly what was ‘released’ publicly by the USFS ( via Arizona Forestry ) just last Saturday…
…I am feeling the need to CLARIFY something.
It was actually ‘Robert the Second’ ( RTS ) who posted the first ‘heads up’ message about this new material back on October 11… but I think a lot of people jumped to a (wrong) conclusion about ADOSH’s possible involvement with ‘the release’.
Let me just reprint again that initial ‘heads up’ post from RTS on October 11…
————————————————————————–
On October 11, 2014 at 8:28 pm, Robert the Second said…
I was contacted by two WFF that had engaged on the YHF to inform me the following: They were both independently contacted by ADOSH? Investigator(s) in the past few weeks and told that ADOSH? was about to release another 42-43 minutes of ADDITIONAL “HELMET CAM VIDEO” as the result of a formal records request.
One of the WFF claimed that this new footage would be “damaging to Marsh.” So, in order for it to be “damaging to Marsh” it would have to be footage PRIOR to the one we have all seen. Remember back when it was first released on IM and there was some weird images on the initial frames suggesting that it had been cut?
I was led to believe that this new footage would be kind of ‘officially released’ when I asked if it was going to be posted on YouTube.
————————————————————–
Notice above that BOTH time RTS refers to ADOSH in the message he was careful to add a QUESTION MARK after that ADOSH acronym.
That means RTS himself ( and/or his source ) was NOT SURE whether ADOSH was really involved with this upcoming ‘release’ or not.
RTS was doing the best he could to pass on some information he had… but it’s obvious that even his own sources weren’t quite sure what AGENCY might be actually involved with that ‘upcoming release’.
So it remains a ‘mystery’ whether ADOSH was either informed or involved in this new ‘evidence dump’ in any way.
Marshal Krotenberg ( lead investigator for the ADOSH Yarnell case ) might have been just as astonished as the rest of us to learn, last Saturday, that the US Forestry Service ( and Arizona Forestry ) have ALWAYS ( and most likely still are ) withholding crucial evidence from both the families of the men who died AND the people who were tasked ( by law ) with investigating this incident.
I’d love to actually hear ADOSH make some kind of ‘statement’ about what just happened last Saturday.
They are ABOUT to actually ‘review’ their findings as per the official legal request to do so that was filed by Arizona Forestry.
That ‘legal request for a review of the findings’ that the Arizona Attorney General’s office sent to ADOSH on behalf of Arizona Forestry actually says they think the findings should be ‘reversed’ because they think ADOSH made conclusions that were (quote) “Not based on substantive evidence”.
Now… last Saturday… Arizona Forestry itself just proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that both THEY and the US Forestry Service have always been ‘withholding substantive evidence’ from ADOSH while they were actually DOING their investigation.
Talk about a Catch-22 here.
Someone is asking someone else to change their minds about their conclusions because they think they didn’t have enough evidence… but that same someone who was supposed to GIVE them the evidence they needed is now proving they were always WITHHOLDING a lot of it from them in the first place.
You just can’t make this shit up.
I would have loved to be a fly on the wall of THAT office!!!
Beaufort Scale: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/beaufort.html
When someone alleges that there were 40 mph or 45 mph outflow-boundary winds being felt by the guys on the ground at the YHF at 4:22 p.m., it can be helpful to go back to the multiple VIDEOS from that exact time period to see if they show visual EVIDENCE of winds of that magnitude at that particular time.
Specifically, the Beaufort Scale suggests that outflow-boundary winds of 40 to 45 mph would be evident in videos taken by guys at the fire by way of us seeing branches BREAKING off of trees and being moved through the air or lightweight lawn furniture falling/flying and WFFs being pushed or physically posturing to brace against the wind. An ATV or UTV trailer being pulled in 45 mph wind, for example, is going to show evidence of such. (While a heavy trailer might be immune to 45 mph outflow-boundary winds, a lightweight horse trailer or UTV trailer will not.)
I mention this in part because Bob indicated below that he believes that someone mentioning in their unit log that they felt 45 mph (or 40 mph) winds at 4:22 p.m. at the YHF means that there were ACTUALLY 45 mph (or 40 mph) winds at 4:22 p.m. from an alleged outflow-boundary being felt by the person who wrote the unit log hours or days later. It doesn’t.
P.S. I had said “Buford” scale previously, but I meant “Beaufort.” Sorry for the confusion. Common science/sence/sense. 😉
See my reply below Elisabeth addressed to me——–
Also note at 9:50 RTS left a note to Marti that accesses the Stanton Weather station history
access that the June 30, 2013 date and see the weather record from the closest station to the Fire.
As I posted down below:
40 mph winds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zKnSyeby4s
Marti Reed says
NOVEMBER 15, 2014 AT 12:01 PM
Shooting in a 30mph wind!:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vlONSxbDKQ
Good find, Marti. At the point where he gets behind the ‘trees’… both the SOUND and the MOVEMENT of the trees matches almost exactly what can be observed on a SUSTAINED basis in almost ALL of the Aaron Hulburd video footage.
There are actually places in Hulburd’s videos where the effect of the SUSTAINED wind on the trees around them is MUCH more dramatic than even this ’30 mph’ example.
Also… the ABC15 Helicopter footage totally supports these kind of SUSTAINED WINDS down there on the ground throughout the entire time that the ‘Air15’ chopper was over Yarnell that day ( 3:59 PM to 4:39 PM ).
I vote 30.
Although the wind could have been faster at the Youth Camp, where Tyson was, than further down Shrine Road where Aaron was.
Topography.
And since they were doing hourly local weather measurements at the Youth Camp sawing site, Tyson’s 45 mph could have actually been a measurement, rather than a memory.
And for simple sake out away from town and trees in the open brush flats of 6 to 10 ft. brush very well could be over 40 with the open conditions, Topography and fire conditions.
Pushing that fire into an upslope confine canyon would be like turning a
freight train loose. Common fire weather, fuels, topography and wind in a canyon/ chimney environment. Above 20MPH it is just Hell you don’t want to be any where near that environment.
Marti, I am not seeing outflow boundary winds at 4:22 p.m. that are in the range of 30 mph. What video are you seeing that in? Could you please point me to it, because, again, I am not seeing that in ANY of my videos?
(In the later videos, we see indrafting or convection winds (as opposed to outflow boundary winds) that are probably pretty high speeds, but 4:22 p.m. is the specific time that Bob Powers referenced, so I am trying to stay in THAT time frame, and not look at, say, 4:30 p.m. or so.)
Elizabeth… what ARE you trying to say?
I’m assuming you have NOT looked at even all of the new videos just released last Saturday. Please go do so again. Watch ALL of them… and pay attention to the TREES.
Also… go watch the ABC15 Helicopter footage again ( ALL of it ) and pay close attention to what it is showing happening on the ground.
Regardless…
Are you trying to say that the wind was NOT driving this fire that day in a forceful and dramatic way?
Is THAT what you are actually ( seriously?) trying to say?
Anything with trees in it on Shrine Road. Aaron was actually zooming in on them.
I was the high priestess of the Weather Wizards of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta for ten years.
I know how to read wind.
Take a deep breath She ain’t done yet
FF have a training S course on weather and how to read wind speed from observation.
They also carry a field pack to take on ground observation of
Wind, Temp, Humidity and Fuel moisture.
Several people were using these tools at Yarnell
Local weather at the fire can be some what different than Station weather away from the fire.
This is also based on the influence of local factors and even the Fire its self.
Yep.
Reoly to Bob Powers post on
November 15, 2014 at 1:12 pm
>> Bob Powers said…
>>
>> Take a deep breath She ain’t done yet
Done with WHAT?
Trying to establish that the wind ( regardless of exact, precise speeds at all locations ) was NOT a major factor in the rapid spread of the fire that day?
Seriously?
Been there this past summer Yup!!!!
Start here:
M2U00264
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t75k7o_L6B8&list=PLTErVrHH6uJja-ljtn7z9Q5Sz9WtCPGw1&index=17
Go further.
Marti,
Good catch. You want to focus on the winds at treetop level and not at the surface level
And at 0.52 seconds you hear OPS Musser saying “40 mile and hour winds at Skull Valley right now …”
Skull Valley is less than 20 air miles due north of Yarnell.
Exactly.
The ground is protected by the trees.
You look up in the canopy to see the wind.
And it’s definitely blowing.
And too bad we don’t have those disappeared photos and videos from the Peeple’s Valley Crew. I’m sure they tell a wind story, too.
Marti… there’s a longer post about this up above but here are just two quotes in the PUBLIC testimony we CAN see from Peeples Valley FF Bob Brandon… who almost lost his own life that day in the Harper Canyon / Youth Camp / Shrine Road area…
“The winds were blowing 40 and 50 mph (in Harper Canyon)”
“They were trying to set up triage ( along Highway 89 ) but the winds were just too great”.
Gotcha!
I think the winds were blowing harder at the Youth Camp because of that west to east drainage leading right to the Youth Camp and then the pull of both Harper Canyon and the draw further to the east beyond where they were sawing under that boulder hill.
I live in a wind-path kind of like that myself. It was the main reason I could never hang plants on my porch.
If it’s blowing anywhere in Albuquerque, whether from the east or the west, I’m getting pummeled.
I also think it’s interesting that Tyson’s saying the winds were from the west.
Given that the winds were, overall, turning the fire clockwise from the northeast to the southwest.
I may know a lot about reading wind, but I don’t know enough about this kind of really complicated fire-weather to be able to figure that out.
Marti.
Have you noticed the flag across the street from the Ranch House in the Story and Tham photos as well as the Russ Reason video?
A little off topic, but interesting.
Thx! I’ll check.
I can look out my window, across the street during the Balloon Fiesta, and tell whether or not they’re going to fly balloons that morning.
And, also, whether or not they SHOULD.
TO ALL:
This red-herring seems to be accomplishing it’s intended goal.
Which of the many red-herrings are you speaking of?
I’m looking at my list.
Elizabeth/Logical Phallacy,
You are even more DELUSIONAL than I thought. Now you include Mike in there as well. And furthermore, you are so far off base on all your other meaningless blather as to totally ruin any credibility that you once had. You should maybe look into become a fiction writer Where do you come up with this stuff? Maybe you should seek mental health treatment.
WARNING: DO NOT GIVE THIS WOMAN YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS EVEN THOUGH SHE WILL DO HER VERY BEST TO CONVINCE YOU WITH HER ‘JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS SIREN CALL’ TO DO OTHERWISE. I HAD TO BLOCK HER FROM MY EMAIL DUE TO HER HARASSING AND STALKING OF ME.
try and post this…5th attempt. even with the recent links and statements from WWTKTT in answering a question of Elizabeth if Frisby ran down in four minutes and yes I said Frisby because that is how it was put to me yesterday by Elizabeth so I contacted Frisby on topic and as well now request to witness this 5min30sec nowadays not on a night where for a couple of hours they are searching for the men and radio traffic is chaotic and so many are heightened with concern and its getting dark and a fierce flame is all around…This new name guy maybe with specific physiological actions in the sympathetic nervous system, both directly and indirectly through the release of adrenaline and to a lesser extent noradrenaline from the medulla of the adrenal glands. These catecholamine hormones facilitate immediate physical reactions by triggering increases in heart rate and breathing, constricting blood vessels. An abundance of catecholamines at neuroreceptor sites facilitates “Superman” moments. There is times when you are stressed you look back and go WOW, I did that? Let me see the same person do that today. So if you are working on facts than you gotta realize we dropped off that mountain and finally no more fire in sight for us and away from area at 3:33pm and let me say the GMHS did not have the same fast speed as this new name mentioned here because they were not running and searching for 19 possible fatalities. I challenge the person to redo that moment today because like Sonny told me Bruce Jenner in high heels or not could not even do that before the fire so it is a point you will not have us change our mind. Yet HOW about the two men going down that spot today and see how well they do. I use to drop off places MOST would use proper ropes and call it rock climbing and I use to be a stunt cheerleader and people said HOW THE HELL did you just do that? I know all about adrenaline because before my health bull bologna I was a junkie for the unusual stunts. Pure Adrenaline Awesomeness was me. Apples and oranges really. You would not say LSD is stronger than like amphetamine, there is no basis with just that statement. So to me, until I see those men redo that in a state of mind unlike that horrific afternoon I have no room to here what “appears” as facts is what it is…in their “Superman” adrenaline moment about to be choked up with grief and that smell I heard was so bad there at the site. Many I have known would never bunji stunt jump with me in the day…my body loves the intense rush. So again keep with your views and I accept it. Yet I have my own. Also again remember one of the YCSO and I hope you are reading this was very close to one of the GMHS and you were there in the aftermath and you are now cold and cut off a unit of folks you knew for over 2 decades—WHY??? what did you see when you arrived? What can’t you say? You have to understand you may have your sources out there but as the hiker we have met people that tells me there IS more to that afternoon than that SAIR and the SAIT did a great disservice. If Frisby and the other guy decide to redo that saddle run, I will let you know the time they did. Please do not think it is not impossible for them to redo it because we have asked some locals to give photos for how long and it finally SLOWLY happening…Now I do not need any more emails on topic. You want to email Sonny than go at it- [email protected]
You want to talk on another topic- sure but we are done on this topic. I agree to disagree.
Truly.
Once, when I was much younger, I had to jump out of a pick-up truck pulling a trailer with my appaloosa in it, and push a boulder (the nearest rock I could find) under the wheel of the truck because it was starting to roll backwards downhill and the emergency brake had gone out.
After I did that, I just was in shock. Total adrenalin rush.
I could never had done that in “Normal.
I noted down below that Elizabeth is at it again that every body on here is Fred again and there fore what they say is just Fred getting back at her.
Do any of you truly believe that John would allow one person to assume several aliases on here?
Do you believe that I am a close friend of Fred and talk to him on the Phone quite often?
There fore I know that Mike, SR, and Fire20+ are 3 seperiate people and RTS is 1 person who is a close friend.
Elizabeth wants to discredit RTS and she has gone to a Paranoia state to do it.
She has totally lost control.
Lets get back to the investigation which is way more important than one persons vendetta for what ever reason………..
As I did last night… if Elizabeth ( or anyone ) asks a reasonable question ( like where a piece of evidence is located )… I will answer that question.
I will have reasonable exchanges with anyone who our incredibly patient host, Mr. John Dougherty, sees fit to allow to comment here.
That’s just called ‘being civil’.
It’s the ‘off the medication’ stuff that needs to stop.
Let’s remember that Elizabeth in the past has also accused TTWARE and WTKTT of being the same person. There are all sorts of people on the web. I’d like to note one thing. She now claims that multiple people on here “hate” her. I sure don’t. I am more than annoyed by the way she has imo tried to disrupt dialogue and cloud facts. But, I do hope she gets whatever it is sorted and stowed.
I don’t know if WTKTT was as pissed-off as I was when the accusations were repeatedly made about us, but I do have to applaud his apparent decision back then, to not get into THAT conversation, however, I wish at least one time, he would have stood up and told Elizabeth how full of shit she was on that issue.
Has anyone else ever noticed that EN seems to jump in when ever a topic gets hot and heavy, and then takes the subject- matter off on a tangent based on iffy facts, and then when the facts are proven incorrect, she attacks the messenger, seemingly trying to keep people off the topic at hand.
Almost like she’s on a specific mission to do just that. I wonder what that’s all about?
One word EXACTLY ………………………………
Reply to TTWARE post on November 15, 2014 at 10:45 am
>> TTWARE said…
>>
>> I don’t know if WTKTT was as pissed-off as I was when the
>> accusations were repeatedly made about us,
Nope. I wasn’t. Didn’t bother me in the least.
>> but I do have to applaud his apparent decision back then to
>> not get into THAT conversation,
I have said this before but I actually participate in a LOT of ‘investigative’ forums like this… and compared to some other ones… this one is still very much just a ‘polite tea party’.
There are ALWAYS people on these kinds of public forums who get more obsessed with finding out who people who chose to post anonymously really are than they are able to ‘stick to the topics’ being discussed.
It happens all the time.
Those people are called TROLLS.
They have ‘other agendas’ contrary to the purpose of the forum itself… and they simply just love to hear themselves talk.
If the moderator of a forum sees fit to allow their messages through… you just have to learn to scroll past them.
As we who live online always say:
DON’T FEED THE TROLLS!!!
Yes…. but it’s also true that SOMETIMES you just can’t resist.
Feeding a TROLL and watching them ‘go off’ can be considered a ‘New age’ form of entertainment.
All things in moderation, however.
We should just all change our names to “Fred” on here and be done with it.
I can pretty well recognize everybody’s “voices” on here anyway.
M2Uoo271
At approximately the 34 second mark, Frisby says that Eric DECIDED to take the trail along the ridge.
He then says he went in to tie in with Eric and came across the lookout.
1. Does this mean Eric decided to head south along the trail, leaving the black before Mcdonough was picked up?
2. Does anyone else agree that Frisby and PNF guys can be seen with their shirt sleeves rolled up? Just curious
First, you are right on the sleeves – Frisby has his rolled once it looks like. True Brown has his down. The sleeves thing seems to be getting a little too much attention. It is important as a safety matter, but I do not think it necessarily tells us what really happened on 6/30/13.
I think Frisby says Eric decided there was a trail – does not say when he or his crew was going to take it. If Marsh went down the trail right away, how was Frisby going to tie in with him. Lastly, I think McDonough may have already left his lookout spot when Frisby talked with Marsh and Marsh knew this (but not yet been picked up). Of course, it appears Marsh did not realize how much trouble McDonough was in.
Maybe I can clear up this Sleeve thing or maybe not—-
Fire shirts are some what genic—They are made in all sizes but sleeve lengths are not a tailor order thing. By that I mean some people have shorter arms than others and those people male a 1 roll on the sleeve to keep the sleeve out of the hand area.
So when FF are talking about the sleeves being rolled up we are talking about a large part of the lower arm exposed or more than the wrist. The gloves cover the wrist when on. Also the Velcro on the sleeve dose not on some people close enough to keep the shirt from getting in the way of the hands.
I say this because I have seen a few pictures of crews with the 1 roil that people are saying they have rolled up sleeves. Those are not what I have been talking about.
Rolled up sleeves that expose the arm are the main concern that I saw.
Calvin there is more information to what you asked we just have not seen it yet.
There is enough in background on these videos to give us some pause but not enough to fully understand the conversations. So we question again?????
Thanks guys.
Two of the PNF guys have their sleeves rolled up as far as they can go, basically. And I have seen numerous other crews on facebook with their sleeves rolled up.
Also if I am not mistaken, Frisby’s skin is visible on that video.
And that did not use to be the norm crew leaders trained there people to roll down sleeves and put gloves on before starting work. It is a safety requirement on the books and needs to be followed I have seen some crews that still follow the rules and some that do not
mistakes shirts are Generic— and Make a 1 roll
The sleeves on shirts has been a common problem for generations for some and many females have had the problem more than males. First we had buttons then Velcro on the sleeves.
DIV A and GM knew there was a trail (two-track) following the ridge-line because the two-track they hiked up on that morning ended at the T intersection of that ridge-line trail.
The fire and their work area was up a ways after turning right at that T.
The probable location for Marsh to meet with Frisby, would have been at that T intersection, and depending upon Marsh’s location, he would have had to hike the ridge-line trail in either one direction, or another, to get there.
Reply to The TTWARE post on November 15, 2014 at 8:47 am
>> TTWARE wrote…
>>
>> The fire and their work area was up a ways after
>> turning right at that T ( intersection ).
Exactly… and when Frisby and Brown drove up for that first face-to-face meeting which took place from 11:55 AM to 12:25 PM… they ‘took that right’
at the ‘T’ intersection and continued on ( north on the high-ridge two-track itself ) in their Polaris Ranger to the ‘anchor point’ location.
It has always been assumed that this SECOND ‘face-to-face’ that Marsh asked for with Frisby ( and that we now hear Frisby talking about himself in the newest Hulburd footage ) would be taking place at the same exact location as the first one… right there near the anchor point.
And given that, EVERYONE who had been up there, knew the ridge-line trail continued N/S, therefore I don’t think the conversation would have been about Marsh ‘recently’ discovering (or finding) a trail.
On Sleeves.
Excerpted From Two More Chains Fall 2014
GROUND TRUTHS: On Learning
By Travis Dotson
Fire Management Specialist
Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center
This summer I helped carry a fellow jumper to an ambulance. I watched someone else get hit by a large tree limb. I had instances of being concerned for my own safety. I choked on smoke. I made decisions about risk—both for myself and others.
I didn’t always wear my gloves. I rolled my sleeves up. I fought fire without a safety zone big enough for the fuel type I was in. I engaged without “expecting the unexpected.” (Yes, I admit I did not have a plan for a meteor impacting our spike camp.)
My awareness was narrowed by fatigue, issues at home, hunger, boredom, stress, and conflict with my supervisor. I continued to put saw line in as I thought to myself: “What the hell are we doing?”
I put fires out that didn’t need to be put out. I didn’t ask questions after a crap briefing. (I just complained about it later.) Or, I did ask questions at these briefings and just nodded when the answer clarified nothing.
I had numerous in-depth conversations about risk, exposure, policy, learning, hunting, traveling, and, of course, fervent debates on the value of bacon-topped doughnuts.
Did I Learn Anything?
pdf link (I don’t know if it will work)
http://tinyurl.com/oghuolm:
On sleeves:
Excerpted From Two More Chains Fall 2014
GROUND TRUTHS: On Learning
By Travis Dotson
Fire Management Specialist
Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center
This summer I helped carry a fellow jumper to an ambulance. I watched someone else get hit by a large tree limb. I had instances of being concerned for my own safety. I choked on smoke. I made decisions about risk—both for myself and others.
I didn’t always wear my gloves. I rolled my sleeves up. I fought fire without a safety zone big enough for the fuel type I was in. I engaged without “expecting the unexpected.” (Yes, I admit I did not have a plan for a meteor impacting our spike camp.)
My awareness was narrowed by fatigue, issues at home, hunger, boredom, stress, and conflict with my supervisor. I continued to put saw line in as I thought to myself: “What the hell are we doing?”
I put fires out that didn’t need to be put out. I didn’t ask questions after a crap briefing. (I just complained about it later.) Or, I did ask questions at these briefings and just nodded when the answer clarified nothing.
I had numerous in-depth conversations about risk, exposure, policy, learning, hunting, traveling, and, of course, fervent debates on the value of bacon-topped doughnuts.
Did I Learn Anything?
pdf link, if it works:
http://tinyurl.com/oghuolm
If it doesn’t work, I’ll post the page below.
Didn’t work……….
Also I posted a note below on Definition of Bump and Run.
Also WTKTT Methods left you a note today on camera info a ways down.
**
** TYSON ESQUIBEL MENTIONS THE “GET GRANITE MOUNTAIN OUT SAFE”
** CONVERSATION WITH GARY CORDES IN HIS OWN UNIT LOG.
When Tyson Esquibel was interviewed by ADOSH… he makes absolutely NO mention of what we can NOW hear him being told by SPGS1 Gary Cordes circa 1635, as everyone was evacuating from the Shrine Road area.
Cordes told Esquibel to send ( at least ) 1 Engine over to the Boulder Springs ranch… and he also told Esquibel to tell whoever he sent to ‘watch for Granite Mountain’ ( to arrive there ) and to (quote) “make sure they get out safely”.
Esquibel never mentions being told to do that to ADOSH… but they never specifically asked him about it, either.
As it turns out… this is finally the solution to that ‘mystery entry’ in Tyson Esquibel’s own Unit Log… which no one saw until it was released in the ‘late package’ of Unit Logs which didn’t appear until February of 2014.
Here are those entries from Tyson Esquibel’s own ‘Unit Log’…
———————————————————————–
1622
Winds increase to 45 mph out of W.
Visibility drop to 150 yds.
Spotting increase, crews briskly move towards trucks.
1630
All crews assembled + accounted for at trucks.
TF2 + Blue Ridge IHC move towards Cafe safety zone.
1632
St. Group 1 request (1) engine to Boulder Spgs.
TF2 request after regroup @ Safety Zone.
St. Group 1 agrees and will meet at Cave Safety zone.
1645 ( approx )
Deployment traffic.
1655
Assemble w/4 medics, myself, and all ALS gear to
do recon for GMIHC + start treatment if needed.
Waiting for info.
———————————————————————–
This is the relevant entry from Esquibel’s Unit Log…
1632
St. Group 1 request (1) engine to Boulder Spgs.
TF2 request after regroup @ Safety Zone.
St. Group 1 agrees and will meet at Cave Safety zone.
This matches almost exactly that short conversation we can now hear with our own ears at +1 minute and 37 seconds in the new Hulburd video clip with filename M2U00264, right down to the fact that Esquibel said he would take care of that AFTER everyone regrouped at the Ranch House Restaurant… and Cordes ‘signs off’ on that with “Sounds like a plan”.
The M2U0064 video is 3 minutes and 37 seconds long.
At the very end of that video is when Brian Frisby and Trueheart Brown ‘pull up’ to Clawson, Hulburd and Yowell in the St. Joseph Shrine parking lot and that moment is time stamped with the Blue Ridge GPS data as exactly 1637.
That makes the actual START time for this M2U0064 video right around 1633.23 ( 4:33.23 PM ) ( 1637 minus 3:37 ).
Caveat: This is exactly what I ( me, personally ) can hear in the background. Your mileage may vary.
From Aaron Hulburd’s Helmet-Cam video clip M2U0064
————————————————————————
+1:37 ( 1635.00 / 4:35.00 PM )
(SPGS1 – Gary Cordes): Task force two, Cordes, on our TAC.
+1:40 ( 1635.03 / 4:35.03 PM )
(TFLD2(t) – Tyson Esquibel): Cordes, Task force two.
+1:42 ( 1635.05 / 4:35.05 PM )
(SPGS1 – Gary Cordes): Do we have a coupla engines holdin’ in place at
the, uh, Boulder Springs Ranch?
+1:49 ( 1635.12 / 4:35.12 PM )
(TFLD2(t) – Tyson Esquibel): I’ll send one that way.
Uh… we’re gettin’ spots up here… but I’ll run one over.
+1:55 ( 1635.18 / 4:35.18 PM )
(SPGS1 – Gary Cordes): Have him involved with goin’ to get… um… Granite Mountain.
Watch for him and make sure he’s… uh… make sure he’s out.
+2:06 ( 1635.29 / 4:35.29 PM )
(TLFD2(t) – Tyson Esquibel): Yea… I’m the last one comin’ out right now.
Uh… we’ll regroup at the… uh… cafe and then send somebody in.
+2:12 ( 1635.35 / 4:35.35 PM )
(SPGS1 – Gary Cordes): Sounds like a good plan.
————————————————————————
So Esquibel was, in fact, recalling that conversation with Cordes VERY well ( almost exactly ) and Esquibel’s Unit Log entry really does match this conversation almost exactly… except for ONE ( big ) thing.
Esquibel makes NO mention ( in either his Unit Log or during his ADOSH interview ) that the REASON Gary Cordes was telling him to send an Engine to the Boulder Springs Ranch was to make sure that Granite Mountain ‘got out safely’ once they arrived there.
Typo above. In two places… I typed ‘Cave’ instead of ‘Cafe’.
So this entry taken directly from Tyson Esquibel’s own Unit Log should have looked like this…
1632
St. Group 1 request (1) engine to Boulder Spgs.
TF2 request after regroup @ Safety Zone.
St. Group 1 agrees and will meet at Cafe Safety zone.
This also answers Elizabeth’s statement about there were no winds at 40 MPH on the Fire There were at 1622 an increase to 45..
So we can add to our list that Cordes knew what GM was doing either he talked to them or herd a conversation on the radio with specifics abut the move we have not herd. This is a critical find for ADOSH and possibly the Families lawyers.
Cordes— How did he know and what did he hear over the radio from Marsh??????
Bob, I will try to break down my weather/wind/wildland-fire calculus (and you can feel free to tell me if you see weaknesses in my calculus):
There is a tool called the “Buford scale” that can be used for ballpark measuring winds on wildland fires. If you look at all of the videos taken at 4:22 p.m., you do not SEE evidence of winds that would suggest – according to the Buford scale – that there were sustained outflow-boundary-related 40 mph winds on the YHF at 4:22 p.m.
EVIDENCE, Bob. Visual EVIDENCE – If there were such 40 or 45 mph winds at 4:22 p.m., there would be visual EVIDENCE of such in the multiple videos that I have in my files (and, as we know, I have perhaps the most extensive files at this point, given that I still have various materials that folks like John Dougherty and others have not bothered to pursue). Of course, if you have different videos that I do, Bob, then please feel free to point us to whichever videos show “Buford” evidence of outflow-boundary-related sustained 40 or 45 mph winds at 4:22 p.m.
The Videos just released when the vehicles are getting out show very strong winds in the trees and you can hear the wind in the recording blowing on the Mike. Those are very strong winds to do that.
If you also look at the Stanton weather station on the June 30 date at 4 an 5 pm it dose not record on the min.
so the 41MPH recorded at 5 could have been going on for 30 plus min. but then I went thru this with you during the summer and you ignored the facts then on E-Mail
So I am still on the facts and they are recorded.
The 20 to 30 MPH winds earlier 3 and 4 are way strong enough to blow that fire to hell any thing over 20MPH are a fire fighters night mare.
40 mph winds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zKnSyeby4s
Shooting in a 30mph wind!:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vlONSxbDKQ
I vote 30.
Although the wind could have been faster at the Youth Camp, where Tyson was than further down Shrine Road where Aaron was.
Topography.
One more followup…
While it is now clear that Tyson Esquibel was remembering that ‘Send an engine to Boulder Springs Ranch and make sure Granite Mountain gets out safely’ conversation he had with Cordes ( circa 4:35 PM ) VERY well… and reproduced it almost exactly ( minus the REASON he was being told to send the engine )…
…there is no such matching ‘entry’ in Gary Cordes’ official Unit Log.
Cordes doesn’t mention this ‘sounds like a good plan’ conversation with Esquibel in EITHER his own Unit Log OR anywhere in his ADOSH interview.
So even though Esquibel thought it was important enough to at least recall and record that conversation in his own Unit Log… according to SPGS1 Gary Cordes’ Unit Log ( and his ADOSH interview )… that entire conversation ‘never happened’.
I am a little confused. Is SPGS1 DW or Cordis?
In M2U00266R, we hear what sounds like DW (confirmed by WTK) identifying himself as SPGS1, right? This occurs at the 3:58 mark.
Yes. That is how that exchange went.
Darrell Willis seemed to respond to callout for ‘SPGS1’… not Cordes.
If you look at at a lot of the radio captures when Cordes was the one actually responding… the tendency on the part of THOSE callers was to prefix their callout with the following…
‘Structure Group, Cordes’.
Also… remember that Cordes had specifically requested TAC 3 for himself and his resources down there in Yarnell… so Cordes was specifically listening for traffic on TAC 3, not TAC 1 or 2 ( like Willis was ).
Even Brian Frisby ‘called out’ to Gary Cordes, at the end of the YARNELL-GAMBLE video… saying ‘Structure Group Cordes, Blue Ridge Hotshots, on TAC 1’.
I’m wondering if that kinda sorta or something has anything to do with Darrell Willis’ Unit Log being named “Structure Protection Group 1” and his map being named “Structure Protection Group 2.”
That has screwed me up a number of times.
There is no dobut there was CONFUSION about this… even in Yarnell on June 30, 2013.
In Willis’ 3:30 AM Unit Log entry… he says that is when he was told Gary Cordes had been assigned to Structure Protection in the Yarnell area as ‘Structure Protection Group #2’.
So Willis really did think HE was SPGS1.
In Cordes ADOSH interview… he describes his official assignment in Yarnell that day as ‘Structure Protection Group ONE’ ( not TWO ).
Maybe that has something to do with Cordes finally requesting his own ‘TAC 3′ radio channel that day specifically for himself and his resources.
Down there on the South side of the fire… most people were using the following specific radio callout when they knew they wanted Cordes…
“Structure Group, Cordes’.
That’s even what Brian Frisby was saying at the end of the 4:27 PM YARNELL-GAMBLE video. Frisby says…
“Structure Group Cordes, Blue Ridge Hotshots, on TAC 1”
Just more evidence of how confusing things really were that day in Yarnell.
I have to say that I’m hearing that radio transmission a tiny bit differently.
As I’ve listened to it, and even as I read your transcript, it sounds to me more like when Gary says, “Watch for him and make sure he’s… uh… make sure he’s out” that sounds more to me like the “he” in it is the engine, not Granite Mountain. Granite Mountain is a “they” not a “he.” I think that if Cordes was saying this about Granite Mountain, he would have said “they.”
And then Tyson says,”Yea… I’m the last one comin’ out right now.” That ties in, to me, with the engine, like Tyson is communicating to Cordes that he knows the engine is ahead of him coming out of the Youth Camp.
This doesn’t change the overall meaning of the order–to send an engine to BSR to “Have him involved with goin’ to get… um… Granite Mountain.”
Perhaps the inference is that once the ‘getting’ of Granite Mountain is complete, make sure that ‘he’ (the engine) gets out OK.
That makes sense, too. Good catch.
Marti… yes… I actually thought about that myself and made EXTRA sure I was hearing the word ‘he’ rather than ‘they’.
I believe my transcript is still accurate.
Cordes does use the word ‘he’ instead of ‘they’…
But my take on that is ( in his own mind ) he was just thinking of Eric Marsh himself and that was causing him to mix his singulars and his plurals in those hectic moments.
I think, to Cordes ( at that moment ), HE meant ‘Eric Marsh AND Granite Mountain’
Either way… Tyson Esquibel seemed to understand exactly what Cordes meant.
Again ( and as I keep saying over and over )… the REAL way to verify some of these background conversations is to re-interview the parties involved.
WTKTT,
See my comment, just above.
Yes. I saw that.
There are actually other places in the plethura of radio exchanges that were captured that day where people were mixing their ‘singulars’ and their ‘plurals’ when referring to other ‘resources’ or ‘units’.
Best examples are when it comes to the airplanes.
Unless it’s just a SEAT tanker… there are usually ‘crew’ on board an airplane with a designation like ASM2 or Bravo33… but a lot of times others would refer to these multiple people in that airplane a HE rather than just THEY.
I think it has to do with the fact that even when you know you are ‘talking’ to an entire resource ( like an Engine crew or a Hotshot crew )… you are still usually just communications with ONE person who ( in your mind, then ) simply REPRESENTS that ‘entire resource’.
Hence the tendency to mix-up your ‘singular’ and your ‘plural’ descriptors when referring to ‘them’.
Either way… I still think Cordes PLAN was clear to Esquibel.
Cordes was wondering if they STILL had a ‘coupla engines’ staged over the Boulder Springs Ranch. If Esquibel had responded in the affirmative I think the second part of Cordes’ conversation would have been the same. He would have then told Esquibel to tell THOSE Engines that were already ‘staged’ there to ‘watch for Granite Mountain’ and ‘make sure they get out safely’.
Esquibel basically answered NO to Cordes’ first question about the engines by coming right back saying he would ‘Send one over there’.
Cordes understood BOTH inferences there…. that Esquibel was basically responding ‘negative’ to his question about any Engines already being over there…. but Esquibel would now be sure to SEND one ‘that way’.
At the end of the conversation… I’m sure both men understood what the PLAN was they just both agreed to.
After Esquibel got all the Engines in his ‘Task Force 2’ assembled down at the Ranch House Restaurant… he would send ONE of them in to the Boulder Springs Ranch with the instructions to ‘watch’ for Granite Mountain to ‘arrive’ there… and then make sure EVERYONE ( Granite Mountain, Engines, EVERYONE ) then ‘gets out safely’.
It was ( as Cordes said ) ‘a good plan’.
It was simply executed TOO LATE to make a difference that day.
If Cordes had given those same instructions to TFLD2(t) Cordes just 15 minutes earlier that day… everything might have been different.
Typo in last half of last sentence above.
TFLD2(t) ( Task Force 2 Leader Trainee ) was Tyson Esquibel, of course, and not Cordes.
I just had a question pop into my mind.
How does an engine get 19 people “out”?
Oh, that’s right. Cordes thought they had plenty of time.
I agree with the sentiment Bob noted, somewhere.
Given the fire’s dynamic conditions at that time, ordering an engine into the Boulder Springs Ranch would be a pretty dangerous call.
Remember what happened to the dozer?
Actually… Cordes was just asking Esquibel if there were already any engines ALREADY ( staged ) out there at the BSR.
It was Esquibel who came right back and basically said ‘no… but I’ll send one there’.
Cordes didn’t disagree with that ‘plan’… but he really was just wondering if they had one there already, or not.
I think all of this just demonstrates that BOTH Cordes and Esquibel did NOT really have a full grasp on the fire behavior or advancement at that time ( 4:35 )… or any idea what was really happening ‘out there’ in the middle bowl and on down towards Glen Ilah.
The fire was basically ‘already there’… but they seemed to be oblivious to that fact.
Just one more example of how the AIR resources were not communicating what THEY knew down to the ground command that day, perhaps?
I am working on the newest photos Joy sent me.
According to the metadata (YAY for METADATA), they were taken with an ipod, a canon powershot and an olympus.
Some were taken June 29, some were taken June 30 and some were taken after July 2. It’s quite a mix.
I have much more looking to do at these photos, and I will describe them in more detail and put them on Dropbox and, from there post them.
What I”m finding most important, in my opinion, actually, are the photos of the fire during the night of June 29. To me, they underscore the irresponsibility of ordering a SHORT type 2 team for the next day.
That fire was seriously BURNING HARD that night!
And fires, generally, from what I’ve read, aren’t supposed to burn all that hard at night.
Marti,
That’s correct Marti. GENERALLY most fires lay down at night, however, when there are HIGH NIGHTTIME temperatures in the 45-55 degree range in the high country or above 80 degrees in the lower deserts, there is the POTENTIAL for extreme to blow-up conditions on existing and/or potential fires.
Such was the case on the YHF on June 30th. Using the Stanton, AZ RAWS (Remote Automated Weather Station) data ( http://www.raws.dri.edu/cgi-bin/rawMAIN.pl?azASTA ) there were VERY HIGH NIGHTTIME temperatures for several days leading up to the YHF fatal day’s fire behavior on June 30th.
Extreme fire potential/behavior occurs on the day FOLLOWING the HIGHEST NIGHTTIME temperatures. If you go to the Stanton, AZ RAWS link and search the archive weather for the nighttime temperatures leading up to the fatal YHF day, you will note nighttime temperatures in the low to high 80’s and even higher, thus setting the stage for EXTREME fire behavior.
So, the high nighttime temperatures in combination/alignment with all the other weather factors, fuel factors, terrain, and such that day, caused the extreme fire behavior and extreme rates of spread. The YHF fire behavior was very similar to the June 26, 1990 Dude Fire fatalities north of Payson, AZ which also exhibited high NIGHTTIME temperatures prior to the extreme fire behavior. During late June 2013, experienced WFF noted these potential large fire growth conditions and briefed their resources on them daily. So, the YHF fire behavior should NOT have been a surprise to anyone experienced in the Southwest . Hope this helps.
Yes, this helps.
Which actually kind of underscored my point.
The photos show how extreme that fire was setting itself up to become the next day.
At both 1:30 AM and again at 3:30 AM ( in the middle of the night, basically ) Darrell Willis himself made entries in his Unit Logs that the fire was definitely ACTIVE ( and not ‘laid down’ or ‘idle’ ) even then.
Here are Willis’ log entries he made in the middle of the night…
————————————————————————–
01:30 AM
Bruce Olsen and I traveled down a two track south being the ( Double-Bar-A ) ranch and determined where fire was above ranch. ACTIVE fire behavior witnessed high up on mountain approximately 1.5 to the Southwest.
03:30 AM
Met IC Shumate at the Yarnell Fire Station, we discussed fire location, what I found at risk and general tactics. He informed me that there was a team ordered and they will start trickling in around 0700. Gary Cordes was there and he had been designated as the Yarnell Structure Group Structure Group #2. We both discussed the resource needs for Day shift including Engines, crews, aircraft and structure protection trailers. We all agreed that we needed to hammer the fire with aircraft as early as we could get them up in daylight. Fire behavior is ACTIVE.
—————————————————————————
SIDENOTE: calvin… if you are reading this… the entries above from Willis’ Unit Log show it was HIS understanding that HE was ‘Structure Group ONE’… and that Cordes was ‘Structure Group TWO’.
However… in Gary Cordes ADOSH interview… Cordes confirms that he thought HE was ‘Structure Group ONE’… not Willis.
Just more proof of the ‘confusion’ that was present on Sunday, June 30, 2013.
From page 3 of Gary Cordes’ ADOSH interview…
Q2 = Dave Larsen ( Rest in Peace )
A = Gary Cordes
——————————————————–
115 Q2: Okay, and I got the first di- dispatch of Yarnell I got that. That was good.
116 Tied in with IC Russ Shumate, and your assigned structure group one…
117
118 A: Right.
—————————————————-
Dave Larsen is actually reading from Cordes’ Unit Log notes at this point in the interview so Cordes made the same entry in his own logs… that HE was assigned to be ‘Structure Group ONE’… not Willis.
Marti,
And of course with high NIGHTTIME temperatures, the fires burn VERY ACTIVELY at night. Active NIGHTTIME fires are and/or should be a big watch out and indicato toall WFFr. The Doce Fire, just prior to the YHF exhibited similar extreme NIGHTTIME fire behavior. This should NOT have been a surprise to non one experienced in Southwest wildfires
Marti,
All jumbled up there above. so correcting it here.
“… a big watch out and indicator to all WFF.” And also correcting the double negative here. “.This should NOT have been a surprise to anyone experienced in Southwest wildfires.”
Sorry about that.
No prob. I got the message!
Exactly.
WTKTT, did you post somewhere the download of the Blue Ridge GPS from that day? My notes say that True went down the slope in 4-ish minutes, but I vaguely recall that you did a minute-by-minute GPS (lat/long) download dump of it. If so, do you have the link nearby?
The BR GPS video is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8cEKBzlhws&list=UU_-A47xgyIvRC3FoQGv3w4A
The complete TEXT version of the Blue Ridge GPS data, point by point, start to finish, with Latitude, Longitude and brief descriptions of each and every movement was published at the bottom of Chapter VIII ( Chapter 8 ) of this ongoing discussion.
The Blue Ridge GPS data shows that it took Captain Brown 6 minutes to make that descent down to the deployment site… but keep in mind that the GPS unit was only updating every 60 seconds.
Here is the part from that complete BR data GPS movement list that documents Captain Trueheart Brown’s fast descent ( on foot ) from the ‘Descent Point’ to the deployment site.
Columns are…
Time, Latitude, Longitude, Distance in feet since last point,. Speed ( MPH ), Description
——————————————
1822 – 34.221823, -112.782125 – 0715.249 – 08.13 – At ‘Descent Point’ and already left two-track starting descent towards deployment site.
1823 – 34.221024, -112.780913 – 0459.679 – 05.22 – Descending in drainage area
1824 – 34.220944, -112.780441 – 0131.291 – 01.49 – Descending in drainage area
1825 – 34.220760, -112.779878 – 0177.553 – 02.02 – Descending in drainage area
1826 – 34.220570, -112.778891 – 0321.836 – 03.65 – Descending in drainage area
1827 – 34.220503, -112.778188 – 0222.092 – 02.52 – Descending in draingae area, almost to deployment site
1828 – 34.220490, -112.777668 – 0156.980 – 01.78 – At deployment site now
——————————————
Six minutes.
Thank you!
If you want to get REALLY picky about it… look at the ‘feet traveled’ and ‘miles per hour’ entry for the very last GPS update which shows him fully ‘arrived’ at the actual deployment site.
In that last ‘leg’ of his trip to the deployment site… he only traveled 156.feet and his ‘average speed’ over those final 60 seconds dropped to just 1.78 mph.
What I am saying here is that since the GPS unit was only updating every 60 seconds… it is perfectly possible that final GPS entry shows that he arrived at the deployment site perhaps 30 seconds before that final GPS update actually happened, which would account for the small distance traveled and the drop in his average speed.
So, technically, I think it’s safe to say he ‘arrived’ at the deployment site in about 5 minutes and 30 seconds versus the full 6 minutes.
My sources are indicating that there WAS no argument between Jesse and Eric that was recorded on video, and my sources are two guys who were friends with Eric and Jesse and who were on the YHF, speaking with Eric and Jesse repeatedly that day.
(According to *other* of my sources, the R-3 guys are so sick of the one old guy who keeps trying to stir up inaccurate drama (like this “recorded argument” drama) that the old guy was not invited to come to this year’s R-3 IHC end-of-the-season meeting.)
Confirming the fact that there is not likely to be any argument between Jesse and Eric suddenly coming to light is the fact that, in Mackenzie’s recorded video clips, it sounds like Eric is asking Jesse about Jesse’s “comfort level.” Guys who are arguing or bossing each other around are not normally trying to get a sense of each others’ “comfort level.” If you are arguing or ordering someone around, you generally do not give a shit about the other person’s “comfort level.” 🙂
correct. they did not seem to be arguing so who wanted them to go down there? We know that Marsh refused early on “safe in the black”
ask Blue Ridge.
Once again, you have absolutely NO idea what you’re talking about. I ALLEGE that you are delusion most times. Your repeated feculence doesn’t surprise me in the least, so typical of you.. You repeatedly spew out misinformation and disinformation, bizarre fantasies, lies and venom and then attempt to mollify things with your nauseating ‘smiley faces’ like that is going to convince people to what? Go crawl back to your web or in your hole. Have a nice day.
I agree after the conversations Elizabeth has had with me over our E-Mails.
Who ever she has as sources are poorly trained and have a low IQ for wild land Fire
step up with your names or go crawl in a hole.
By the way your souses should check the R3 IHC meeting attendance. DAM that old guy was there invited by the way……..
Your sources are figments of your imagination….There is information out there I have herd it, RTS has herd it as have others and some have seen and herd the Audio. Because you and your sources haven’t is of no importance to me.
RTS, Bob Powers just said that you were at the R-3 IHC gathering just days ago, but I’m pretty sure you were NOT. Clarify, RTS…
I don’t have to clarify anything to you. Who the f**k do you think you are? See above.
🙂
So my intel was good – you didn’t get invited, RTS. Keep burning R-3 bridges.
Like I said. Delusional! You live in a fantasy world Elizabeth/Logical Phallacy. Crawl back into your hole.
Hmmmm, my sources have confirmed that you were NOT there, RTS. Now who’s the liar?
Elizabeth/Logical Phallacy,
You clearly are DELUSIONAL! You live in a fantasy world with very unreliable sources to boot. Crawl back into your cockroach hole or go check your web. Like I said, who the f**k do you think you are?
Right – so you weren’t at the R-3 IHC end of season thing/mtg. this year. 😉 Ya might want to tell Bob that.
Your Intel is BS– You calling me a Liar Again you have no clue
What I say is fact and you are again way off base. Not interested in your intel any longer.
Discrediting people seems to be your way of life. Again go play in another sand box.
Elizabeth/Logical Phallacy,
Delusional and dangerous indeed I allege! I had you blocked from my email account due to your persistent harassment and stalking, so you now have to persist here on IM because you cannot do it elsewhere. Twisted.
WARNING: DO NOT GIVE THIS WOMAN YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT FOR ANY REASON IN SPITE OF HER SIREN CALL TO ENTICE YOU, LEST YOU SUFFER THE SAME FATE.
She is really showing her true colors tonight folks – BLACK.
Elizabeth I will say this once as nice as I can Your sources
are fallacies’ as is your disturbing refusal to listen .
wasting breath but once more RTS/Fred was at the IHC meeting. We talk all the time ……..
He has nothing to prove to you …………..
What he dose for and with the Forest Service is none of your business.
You are proving nothing with this argument except your childish dismissal of the facts. You are in NEW YORK not following Fred around Arizona and New Mexico. and neither are your sources. enough is enough. You wont get very far calling me a liar on here either.
Bob,
I don’t have any sources, but I have to say Elizabeth has to be one of the most unpleasant people I have ever encountered in my life. At one time I actually felt a bit sympathetic towards her, but she is now determined to be utterly obnoxious.
I may not be convinced of all RTS has discussed, but given the inexplicable nature of what happened that day, what he says certainly could be possible. The co-head of the SAIT publicly mentioned an argument – so to discuss it is not at all ridiculous.
I do not know what game she is playing, but it is quite obvious she doesn’t care what people think of her. But I also think she does not really care about the truth here either.
Your right enough said Thanks Mike
I really hate to say it, but I agree.
I think that NORMAL law professors would care about repeatedly making statements that are very easily shown to not be credible. I try in these cases to think what someone is trying to do. If EN were trying simply to support the idea that there should be no accountability, which imo is where she started, she might keep saying “this was reasonable, the little trek through the green was reasonable, you guys aren’t lawyers,” which is more or less imo what she did initially. Now she’s gotten to a new level of nasty. I can’t know what is in someone’s head. In general, if I see someone devolve their behavior, I wonder if there was some intervening life stress. What I would hope is that she resolve whatever imo is troubling her, and do so privately.
Marti, you realize that SR and RTS and Fire 20+ and Mike are all “Fred,” right? Someone actually did a post once showing us how Fred has posted here under all sorts of different names, pretending to be other people so that it would *LOOK* like someone was actually agreeing with his crap. He accidentally outed himself at one point by posting the same exact thing using two different names. So, the fact that Mike, SR, and RTS “all” hate me is not terribly disturbing, because they are all just Fred, and Fred’s own crew has told me that he is a, umm, … well… they have used various words, as have guys at the top levels of the WFF world. They have all said the same thing – Fred is just not credible, and Fred is trying desperately to start drama and spread misinformation regarding the Yarnell Hill Fire. One senior guy in the WFF community blamed it on Fred’s relatively recent stroke, one senior guys said Fred has ALWAYS been like this, and one senior guy blamed the Dude Fire. In short, if Calvin says horrible things about me, maybe I’d care. But if Fred’s made-up names says it, I don’t care much at all. My goal at this point is to try to keep some of you from creating needless and baseless noise that is incredibly upsetting to the people hurt most deeply by the GM tragedy.
Boy Elizabeth, you’re a regular Sherlock Holmes.
How else could you have also deduced, as you repeatedly stated in the past, that WTKTT and I are the same person, as well.
Please go back to your own non-productive blog page to spin your yarns. Your input in this commentary, is non-productive as well!
I think maybe Elizabeth might have some kind of multiple-personality-obsessive-compulsive disorder.
These claims are nuts.
“My goal at this point is to try to keep some of you from creating needless and baseless noise ”
And, also projection much?
Then… do your sources also know anything about WHO the ‘multiple persons’ were that testified to the SAIT that they DID hear this ‘argument between Marsh and Steed’?
In his (public) speech before Utah Firefighters on June 20, 2014, SAIT Co-Lead Mike Dudley himself came right out and said that ‘multiple people’ ( Even more than TWO? ) had said they heard this ‘argument’ between Marsh and Steed.
He said they couldn’t (quote) “validate that”… but he also never said what they did to even TRY to ‘validate it’ ( if anything ).
But the fact remains that even the Co-Leader of the SAIT admits that more than one person says they DID, in fact, hear this ‘argument’ between Marsh and Steed.
By the way… I’m sure any WFF will tell you that the moment someone is asking you what your ‘comfort level’ is over the radio… you can be SURE that conversation involves that person wanting you to DO something…
…and that any ‘What’s your comfort level?’ conversation can descend VERY quickly into an argument based on the personalities and the levels of ‘hard-headedness’ involved.
Marty Cole ( the first Captain of the Granite Mountain Hotshots ) has already testified that even despite his (supposedly) easy-going ways and southern drawl… Marsh was, could, in fact, be a real ‘hard-head’ at times.
WTKTT: Based on your reasoning, then, could it be possible that the “comfort level” discussion was what was viewed as an argument by some unnamed sources (again, not my sources, who were THERE and actually heard some of this firsthand)?
OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD PAY ATTENTION??????????????????????
reply:This is an area we meaning me, Frank Serros, Tommy Maiden, Bryant S., Tex Gilligan can state we know that VERY spot may it be the saddle or center to the 2 track ridge looking down and we all agree on this statement: YES it IS deceptive looking and appears to look easy. In areas the day of the fire before it burnt was spaces and very thin (7 inches) of erosion space yet at points it had intertwined chaparral, scrub oak, cat claw, cacti, thick bear grass, datura, wildflowers, and boulders.
Recently we were asked can you go down in there?
Is it possible before the fire?
Well, to answer Sonny feels a bear can wallow around in there but no human he told someone recently and I disagree because we went that way and fought in the very spot the men died—that is what my gps coordinates but it was a maze-like dense terrain with very thick intertwined chaparral, scrub oak, cat claw, cacti, thick bear grass, datura, wildflowers, and boulders. Could an elite squad at the end of the day when they looked so spent early on do it? I would have to say yes being we saw them a lot at standby throughout the midday. Rested. It would be SLOWWWWWW going in spots. Would they make it in 20 minutes to the ranch…it depends how well they examined the box canyon. to answer you: No. It is possible if they could of scaled the boulders up top still having their eyes on the fire (still slow going but safe) versus dropping into the thick spots which even if you were the elite we can take anyone to an example of what they faced that day and many we took already said NO WAY! Who would even want to travel in that brush? Now for Sonny’s view:
Sonny says HELL NO they could not get there in 20 minutes from the saddle to the Helm’s. You could not even make it to the site where they died in 20 minutes after the fire as proven with Brett from Osha a marathon runner. He said it it took him 22 minutes after the fire just to get down the mountain to the site. Now, the degree of grade in some areas there were 60% and than add the tight brush. The brush Sonny states before the fire was so thick that it was like a maze to get through. There was no game or cattle trails to follow. About the only thing we saw was where bear had wallowed the brush down in certain areas. And those you definitely could not walk through. You could not roll through like a bear can. Willis stated in his early media talks that a regular human couldn’t transverse such terrain but the elite men with their chainsaws did and could.
It would seem that the FBI would get involved considering that millions in Federal Tax Monies have been squandered due to allowing this fire to an advanced stage and wild fire. Fema’s and BLM’s presence and observations in the early stages of the fire shows that the Feds were involved from the get go. There were federal lands that burned, albeit only 3%–still enough to involve the Feds. Also those Jet Liners that dumped thousands of dollars in retardant came from out of state, hence the crossing of state lines based on a felonious allowing of a fire to be the worse killer of humanity in many years. We heard of the arguement here in Yarnell of whether or not to put it out the first day or not and we have heard that a local dispacher was told to get rid of certain records pertaining to the fire. Those reports to us whether true or some people making up stories ought to at least be investigated and obviously not with the people who regard these investigations so lightly. To my way of thinking this situation demands an outside Federal Investigation. I am certain people have already contacted those outside agencies in a matter as serious as this one had become. I think it is called pork barrel money until it involves the death of men–then the realities of how operations are needlessly risking lives while ripping off the tax payer becomes criminal pork barrel.
I indeed see how the familes of these heroes are angry and add to that the people that have lost their homes and lives beyond that we begin to see that the tragedy extends beyond the lives of those heroes. What about the 33 deaths since the fire–the increased incident of lung problems and the loss of wild life. These are just a part of the mess debacle has created. Then you have people taking awards and bowing before audiences as though they did a great joy.
I hear of one even running for political office–If he winis I hope he is more successful there than he was on this fire.
Joy and I will shortly attend a meeting about how a memorial should be. We think it should go to the site that the state wants to arrest you for going to see. You can go to Mann Gulch or the Storm King sights with no trepidation–People pay their respects to those sites–but this one has been treated differently. Why? Maybe someone can inform me on that one.
We will also ask for a memorial in Yarnell for those whom have died since the fire–Some 33 that Joy has names for since the fire. Perhaps not all are totally related but older folks that live her (myself included if 71 is senior) but this fire indeed has been a significant factor in those deaths. I think even of that young man Zack Ashoor of Phoenix who stopped me as I was walking down the street of Yarnell. He wanted to know where the site where those men died. He told me he had been in some of the bars with the men and when he heard the news he had broken down and cried. He wanted to see the place. So I took my time to hike him there and I noticed he used some type of breathing device,. although he seemed to make it well at my slow pace. He told me he had asthma. Once above the site he said I am going down to that fence, I have to go to pay my respects. I told him he might get arrested–he replied he would stand before any judge on that. I found that he was actually working on a respirator that would save lives for firemen–he said oxygen apparatus was just too heavy but he was trying to improve one so that weight would not be a factor. — That man was another hero in my book and I believe that breathing that smoke and bad air right after the fire actually escalated his problem–but nothing would have stopped him from paying respect to those men. I know it has affected plenty of residents including myself and Joy when it comes to breathing properly.
Yea there is more to come and Joy is expecting more quality photos from sources she has lined up. I don’t know that there will ever be a break here until the whole truth and nothing but the truth comes out– We need all the help we can get and just as Joy tells people, no matter how insignificant someones testimony or photo may seem, it may be just the thing to unveil another truth.
Sonny said:I hear of one even running for political office–If he winis I hope he is more successful there than he was on this fire.
Joy said: I heard it the man who fought on this Yarnell fire Sonny…Prescott Fire Chief Dan Freijo…and if he wins he wants to unionize the firefighting community.
Just chiming in here with a point…
Prescott Fire Chief Dan Fraijo was NOT in Yarnell at any time that weekend… but he WAS forced out of his job by Prescott City Manager McConnell following the incident.
M2U00266R (beginning at 4:08)
Who says “you can stage at the small (?) right there right on the north side by the mini storage. why don’t you just take the north end of town. I am down here on the south end”
SPGS1?
I believe that is definitely Darrell Willis responding to that ‘Type 2’ crew which has apparently just arrived in Yarnell and they want to know where they should go.
Willis was ( apparently ) already ‘down on the south end’.
He MAY have still been traveling in his vehicle towards the Ranch House Restaurant.
It was slow going for him as he drove down Highway 89.
There was LOTS of smoke and Willis even reports having to stop because of 2 horses running down the middle of Highway 89 as he drove down to the RHR.
calvin… followup…
I’m still working pretty hard here on the transcripts for all these new videos ( as released )… and I’m also working on establishing exact TIMES for all of them.
Since the USFS didn’t see fit to successfully fulfill the FOIA request and deliver ( as closely as possible ) byte-for-byte original copies of the material in their possession… we don’t have the EXIF timestamp information for any of these videos.
Not to worry. There are ‘anchor events’ in most of these videos that already have ‘known times’ and it shouldn’t take too long to discover what the exact START / STOP times are for each video… the ‘duration of time’ in-between them… and how much time is still ‘missing’ from the recordings.
More later…
thanks. patiently waiting.
I thought that was DW also. It sounds like he is talking with Structure 3 (Berry?) It doesn’t sound like he is still actively traveling south.
He (DW) says (At 4:12) “why don’t you just take the north end of the town, Im down here on the south end.” (4:29) “were just doing point protection, you know bump and roll on it”
And, with that, Calvin, you answered why the engine was going to the BSR. Bump and roll.
Fire terminology you might want to check on what it means before you stick your foot in you mouth.
That communication has nothing whatsoever to do do with Gary Cordes communicating with Tyson Esquibel to send an engine to Boulder Springs Ranch.
WTF is your agenda, Elizabeth?
This post shows you have no clue what you are talking about.
Marti, what do you *THINK* “bump and roll” means?
Once you figure that out, it should be easy for you to figure out HOW that applies to the engine that Cordes was requesting be brought to BSR. He wasn’t asking for it to be brought there to somehow protect GM. That is something WTKTT is making up.
Also, on a personal note, Marti, why are you forgetting how NICE I have been to you off-line, outside of this forum? How are you forgetting that, Marti? I mean that sincerely.
Reply to Elizabeth post on
November 15, 2014 at 8:41 am
>> Elizabeth said…
>>
>> He wasn’t asking for it to be brought there to
>> somehow protect GM.
He is telling Esquibel to get an engine involved with ‘picking them up’ and to ‘get them out safely’. The word ‘protect’ is not in the radio capture.
>> Elizabeth also said…
>>
>> That is something WTKTT is making up.
Nope.
If you can’t at least hear the ‘Granite Mountain’ part of that conversation… you are DEAF.
Bump and Roll—
Move up put out fire or build line and roll (move) to the next spot.
That is what bump and roll means.
Or in Hand crew terminology Bump Up
One crew reaches the back of another in line construction and the crew in front bumps up and starts new line as the crew behind then builds line till they bump up again. You have crews working together to increase line construction rates very effective.
With Engines they are moving and putting out fires along a road to stop the spread
Also known as Bump and Run it takes team work and cooperation.
I TOTALLY understand what bump and roll means.
That’s NOT what Cordes was asking Esquibal to do.
Why would you say that?
You wrote:
“Also, on a personal note, Marti, why are you forgetting how NICE I have been to you off-line, outside of this forum? How are you forgetting that, Marti?”
Thank you very much, Elizabeth for emailing me with the hedz-up about the red Wickenburg truck not being Paul Musser’s.
Now, please quit wasting my time and everyone else’s by challenging us on every little thing without, apparently, having done enough homework to develop the knowledge base to do so,
And please quit wasting bandwidth and this page’s ability to process comments (and probably the readers’ patience) with all your jive about how people here, who have clearly different voices and personhoods, being sock-puppets of “Fred.”
It’s not NICE to do that, either.
Dear Marti: That is not what I am referring to that I did for you. Are you forgetting what ELSE I did for you?
Clearly you are, since you are snarking at me for no good reason. I get that this whole situation triggers you due to your horrifying own personal situation (which you have disclosed here and for which I have repeatedly expressed my sympathies). I, personally, have been nothing but supportive to you about that, which you yourself admitted. Therefore, in return, I would have thought you would have been a bit less inclined to lash out at me when I have never said anything personally attacking you.
And, thus, what makes you less of the “arm-chair quarterback” you accuse Bob Powers of being??
It’s totally clear to me that he knows light-years more than you do about fighting wildfires.
And, yes what you are saying could be true.
Or maybe not. I don’t know Berry arrived.
Typo. It’s late in a long day.
I don’t know when “Berry” arrived on the fire. If I remember correctly, he was interviewed by ADOSH.
Reply to Robert the Second’s post on November 13, 2014 at 8:52 pm
>> Robert the Second ( RTS ) said…
>>
>> WTKTT,
>>
>> The two WFF I referred to on October 11th were
>> NONE of ‘the Prescott three’ as you refer to them.
Thank you! It really was just a ‘wild guess’.
I still think it is more than likely, however, that Prescott National Forest employees Jason Clawson, Aaron Hulburd and KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell are all fully aware of EVERYTHING that Aaron filmed that day. They are all ‘thick as thieves’ there at PNF and more than likely they all SAW his footage before he even gave it to whoever it was he actually gave it to in the first place following the tragedy.
Actually.. he obviously did NOT give his material directly to Arizona Forestry or the newly formed SAIT… but went through his own PNF / USFS work channels. That’s why it took an actual Federal level FOIA to ‘shake them loose’.
We still simply just don’t know the WHO ( Sic: NAMES ) or what the ‘chain of possesion’ was on his ‘evidence’.
It’s still pretty much NON-CREDIBLE that Arizona Forestry would have ONLY seen the Hulburd footage that covers the actual MAYDAY sequence…. which THEY released last December.
If US Forestry really did ONLY show AZF ( and the SAIT? ) that one single file from all of this footage they already had in their possession from PNF employee Aaron Hulburd… then I would imagine there are even people at AZF that have a ‘bone to pick’ with Tom Harbour up there at USFS.
>> RTS also said…
>>
>> Today, I did talk to one of the original two WFF (the
>> one who noted some footage ‘damaging to Marsh’)
>> that I referred to October 8th, and he had not yet
>> seen these latest video releases. When I told him
>> NONE of them had any radio transmissions from
>> Marsh, he was definitely ‘astonished’ and said the
>> video clip(s) he saw/heard month(s) ago CLEARLY
>> had Marsh radio transmissions in them.
Well… technically… since the USFS chose to basically re-release that original footage from December in THIS new ‘evidence dump’ as well… it is, in fact, true that THESE new videos DO have ‘Marsh in them’… but it’s just the same “Our escape route has been cut off” and “We are burning out around ourselves” and “I’ll give you a call when we are under the shelters” traffic from Marsh that was first heard back in December.
I wouldn’t call THOSE transmissions ‘damaging to Marsh’.
So just to be clear… we are talking about your source(s) referring to some OTHER heretofore ‘unheard’ Eric Marsh transmissions… correct?
THOSE ( if they exist ) are definitely NOT included in this latest ‘evidence dump’. Other than the same December “We are deploying” traffic… there really aren’t any identifiable transmissions from Marsh in THIS latest release.
We can certainly now hear ( for the first time ) that Gary Cordes was actually instructing his Task Force Trainee Tyson Esquibel to send an engine over to the Boulder Springs Ranch to ‘watch’ for Granite Mountain and to (quote) “make sure they get out safely” (endquote)…
…but I don’t hear any NEW radio transmissions from Eric Marsh himself.
>> RTS also said…
>>
>> No clarification whether over TAC or A/G on this point.
I still believe the evidence points to there being some kind of ‘emergency’ transmissions on BOTH of these channels that day.
We can HEAR the ones that went out over A/G in the Hulburd videos… but we still haven’t heard the one ( or more? ) that might have preceded those calls but went over TAC.
Even Rance Marquez, in his ADOSH interview, is recalling hearing SOME kind of ‘emergency’ talk over the radio BEFORE he testifies to hearing that first “We are in front of the flaming front’ MAYDAY call from Jesse Steed over the A/G channel.
Marquez even goes so far as to say he believes it was something about someone trying to do some ‘sound location’ between Marsh and the Helicopters BEFORE Jesse Steed’s first MAYDAY.
>> RTS also said…
>>
>> None of this surprises me. The FS is well known
>> (since the 1938 Mann Gulch Fire) in fatality fire
>> investigations, for ‘establishing a conclusion first and
>> then fitting the “facts” to fit that conclusion.’ It’s
>> maddening and unfortunate, but very predictable.
>> And yet they refer to them as “Factual Reports”
>> most times.
In case you haven’t noticed… I ( me, personally ) don’t give a rat’s ass what either Arizona Forestry or their parent company ( US Forestry Service ) has EVER done ‘in the PAST.
I want them to ‘come clean’ on THIS incident.
As soon as possible.
This is a seminal moment for them( no matter how they have handled things in the past ) and I ( and a whole lot of other people ) want to see them all put on their big-boy shorts and do the RIGHT thing this time.
It’s not hard.
Just tell the TRUTH.
For men who pride themselves on ‘duty, honor, courage, character’ and all that jazz… I haven’t seen much of ANY of that from them so far. All I see ( so far ) is a bunch of guys trying to protect their own jobs and cover their own asses. Not much to ‘respect’ there.
>> RTS also said…
>>
>> Clarification point: “that I referred to October 11th …”
>> NOT October 8th
Copy that.
One more thing…
Obviously I am NOT going to ask you to query your sources about anything because I know you, yourself, are deciding how and when to participate in the PUBLIC part of this ongoing fiasco…
…but can you at least ‘throw us a bone’ and give us even a HINT as to what the NATURE of the information would be that your source is saying would be ‘damaging to Eric Marsh’?
Is your source trying to say that there WAS some kind of argument between Eric Marsh and Jesse Steed ( just as SAIT Co-Lead Mike Dudley said multiple witnesses have alleged )… and that Marsh was beating Steed over the head with all kinds of reasons to make the risky move until Steed finally just ‘gave in’…. or something?
I would extend this question to whether leaving his crew a very slim margin was one of the traits that RTS has heard got Marsh lectured by peers in the past.
One of the backdrop training issues here is, should Marsh and Steed have been expected to know how long going through that kind of brush would take? Should they have been expected to know about foreshortening as it would relate to the illusion of the BSR being “right there?” And, does the evidence suggest that they both in fact did have those baselines of knowledge?
Intuitively, I can see a conversation where one party is insisting they need to get down and to town quickly and that they can make it. In terms of group dynamics and social facilitation, particularly during times of high pressure when there is a feeling of urgency, it can be hard to avoid going along.
SR From my Back ground Yes Marsh and Steed would know the time it would take from past experience as well as living in that type of fuel. its a learning process as you gain knowledge and experience.
Agreed. That would be normal thing, and most likely was the case. I think it’s worth ruling out if possible the off chance that it wasn’t the case — for example, one poster here early on was insisting that GM would have been just zipping along on game trails, even though he self-reported that he, himself, was in an outdoor role. The answer as to whether they had that experience helps on evaluating the decision making process.
They likewise imo SHOULD have known that the BSR wasn’t “right there,” and likewise should have referred to maps and among other things used their phones if needed to do so. So, should have known they would be a long while working through the brush.
Some Game trails are passable in brush humans with packs and saws have more effort to work thru it vertical verses horizontal. as the brush thins you make better progress which the open flat below the crew looked like easer
moving than the canyon with boulders and heavy brush although there were openings the made purity good time to get to where they were from the saddle. It just took to long with what they were trying to beat.
If you call a painfully slow walk good time, they made good time. But it was still at a painfully slow walk. I’m sure you’ve been in similar brush and I am sure you know that even great urgency doesn’t allow you to move much faster. Particularly if keeping a large group together.
I still actually wonder if someone might have ‘fallen’ or otherwise came close to twisting an ankle or something ( but was actually OK, eventually )… and that might have ‘stopped’ the whole group for some minutes during the descent.
Unless that person really was seriously injured… I doubt we would have heard about that even over the GM intra-crew.
But it still would have caused a significant DELAY on the descent.
OR wtktt that person WAS seriously injured and this is why Eric returned to the crew. Their descent was intensely dangerous, the cobble mixed with cactus on a steep slope made for awful footing. I can imagine something more serious than a twisted ankle…a broken ankle, a blown knee, a broken leg maybe. If somebody was injured it would have changed everything quickly, and in their movement there was no room for error. I’ve pondered this possibility since the beginning, it’s something a Superintendent would do….run back for his crew to help with an injured GMIHC. I have no proof of this of course, it’s just a possibility.
Fire20+… you may be right.
The ONLY reason I have been excluding a really SERIOUS injury is because it is simply inconceivable to be that the moment any Supervsior ( GMIHC SUP Steed or DIVSA Marsh ) became aware of it… that they would NOT have been notifying Operations about it… and requesting assistance.
It’s just impossible for me to fathom that these guys might have been so insular and uncommunicative that they wouldn’t have immediately reported a serious injury the moment it happened.
But then again… these are the same guys who didn’t feel the need to CLEARLY and EFFECTIVELY communicate about the actual move they were making in the middle of a dynamic fire situation…
…so maybe they really would have had that much of a “It’s nobody’s business but ours” mentality.
has anyone remembered the news when it first broke out? 18 men died. Has anyone listened to the radio communication links? 18 fatalities confirmed.
Is it possible that they found another body in another place?
Did they move a body to that spot?
How honest are the folks who were first on the scene?
Can they be given a polygraphed test to determine was there 18 at the site when first arrived?
I think that is an important question and issue myself.
Also, you have to remember one of the people FIRST ON THE SCENE was very good friends with one of the GMHS before the fire and now is no longer talking to the family so does that say something there. Guilt? Withholding information? Why be good good friends for over twenty years than cut the family out so cold? The first on scene are not in SAIR much for the details I need to know.
18. When and how did it become the number 19?
Joy— they confirmed 19 a short time latter’
The roster minus McDonough who was accounted for was 19 -1 =18 plus Marsh which then became 19.
The EMT corrected the number shortly after he made that statement when he checked and counted.
I don’t think there was any reason for a conspiracy here.
Had they had an injury I believe protocol would have dictated an immediate evacuation by Helicopter and a EMT to the scene.
Certainly it’s possible that someone had a minor or major mishap that was worse than a scrape. But, imo then they would have made even less progress.. Even if you have people upfront cutting what they can, it’s just slow going.
One of these days… someone needs to review the autopsy reports from that perspective and look for ‘fresh injuries’… even if in order to simply ( and permanently ) rule that OUT.
The fact remains that the GMHS overhead chose the absolute WORST possible time to descend to the BSR! They left when the winds and fire behavior were at a peak AND without the benefit of a REQUIRED lookout (LCES) OR letting OPS and/or AA know what they were intending and/or doing. and where they were going (LCES). They were there in the good, safe black all day long doing nothing physically, yet surely talking about these options and yet they DID nothing. There was NO need to leave their perfectly good Safety Zone!
In other words, they could have safely descended to the BSR hour(s) before and nothing adverse would have occurred. However, it would have FURTHER contributed to the Marsh hazardous attitude of ‘Bad Decisions With Prior Good Outcomes.
WTKTT – I’ll address your question when time permits
Bruce Hanna of Osha faced injury going down that saddle so WWTKTT may be correct on the ankle problem.
And, to add on, I believe Fred or someone who is from that general area said that 20 minutes would be a good estimate for the amount of time it would take for a ‘Shot crew to traverse that last leg to the BSR.
who is Fred?
Elizabeth said:
20 minutes would be a good estimate for the amount of time it would take for a ‘Shot crew to traverse that last leg to the BSR.
Sonny and Joy Said: Question. where is the LAST LEG location? from where they deployed? possibly but not from the ridge top/saddle.
Yes Joy from where they deployed to the BSR.
we, both Sonny and I, saw the other areas outskirts of Prescott where they fought fires…they dealt with brush like they faced in Yarnell so yes to that.
Reply to Method’s post on November 13, 2014 at 4:21 pm
>> Method said…
>>
>> Not a huge piece of info, but from my experience of
>> filming wildland fires with a GoPro, they don’t have the
>> capabilities of a “zoom”. The small amount of Aaron’s
>> videos that I’ve seen, he seems able to “zoom” in and out.
>> Also, a GoPro has more of a fish eye lens which results
>> in a wider view and some distortion around the edges.
>> So my opinion is that Aaron is not using a GoPro.
Thank you, Method.
Obviously we are struggling to figure something out here that we really shouldn’t have to. The actual name of the DEVICE that took these videos SHOULD still be retained in the EXIF metadata that is always embedded in the actual videos…
…but in this case… it is NOT.
The original EXIF metadata has been REMOVED from these videos, which means they are in no way ‘original copies’ of the material that USFS has in their possession.
Actually… it is perfectly obvious now that even though that video of the final MAYDAY calls that Arizona Forestry released back in December was called ‘The Helmet Camera Video’… these new clips indicate that Aaron Hulburd probably wasn’t using an official ‘Helmet Camera’ at all.
Yes… there are obviously times when the device appears to be attached to his Helmet… such as in the original December footage with the MAYDAY calls captured…
…but in some of these new video clips it is obvious it was NOT attached to his Helmet at all while he was filming.
In video M2U00266R… it is obviously just sort of clipped to his shirt pocket… more like the ‘Body Cams’ that Police Officers use now.
When Aaron Hulburd is standing right in front of KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell… the camera is obviously at ‘pocket level’ and all we see is Yowell’s shirt buttons.
So it was more likely just a camera that was able to CLIP to things, like a Helmet bracket or a shirt pocket.
Thanks for your comment and your interest in this ongoing discussion.
It’s only 8:30 PM here in Albuquerque and I’m almost exhausted.
And I’m thinking that today we may have set something close to a record of the most posts published here in one day.
Think about that.
It appears to me that, contrary to some things that some folks have said about how there haven’t been any significant “Lessons Learned” coming out of this fire. there may be, in fact many significant “Lessons Learned” that this fire is TRYING TO TELL US, in spite of all kinds of things that have been, and continue to be, thrown up as obstacles by various Powers That Be.
In a way… the original SAIT itself seemed to conclude that they had only TWO options…
1) Tell the TRUTH about what happened that day.
2) Pretend the TRUTH is unknowable and call it a day.
They picked door number 2.
They totally misunderstood what was hiding behind ‘door number 2’.
And here is what else they ‘forgot’ ( or were too thick-headed to realize )…
1) This was a HISTORIC loss of life. HISTORY doesn’t like ‘mysteries’ and
they tend to get solved no matter how long it takes.
2) This is the first major fatality fire of the new ‘Internet Age’.. The ‘old games’ aren’t going to work anymore..
Mr. Gary Olsen actually warned them about number 2…. but they didn’t listen.
well said!
So I’ve been continuously wondering how/if this thing could possibly, all things considered, get bumped to a FEDERAL level, since we have here a Federal Agency obstructing a legally authoritative State level investigation.
I’ve been wondering if this could bump it to OSHA, but I had not found out if/how that might happen.
Then Joy wrote something about how this should trigger an FBI investigation.
So I posted, could this happen, all things considered??
Then I got this response:
Bob Powers says
NOVEMBER 13, 2014 AT 4:27 PM
“No
I am not even sure with this being a non Federal Fire that the FBI
would ever get involved OSHA would probably be the first step
State level if information was with held from them.
Again this was a state fire no Federal Employee hurt or a Fatality
so the only thing the FS is doing is protecting their Employees
who were there and were involved in any supervisory capacity or the Incident its self which could stretch to BR and Air Attack
That’s the only reason on gods green earth they are not releasing Written Statements and audio/video they have that was in the control of there employees.
So again I doubt that the FBI would even be involved.
Court records requests are a different story if the law suit continues both sides will get all the records and videos in original format. I guarantee you they have them or are getting them now……..With this little surprise being sprung on the Families Lawyer.”
So now I’m thinking there are two possibilities here.
ADOSH gets pissed off enough that they appeal to OSHA. After having refused to negotiate with AZF.
OR
The lawsuit process uncovers evidence of the USFS obstructing justice.
I just don’t know how this kind of stuff works.
But, clearly, someone with the appropriate level of federal authority needs to somehow be triggered to use that authority to intervene in this and call the USFS to account.
I’m having a hard time imagining how the USFS protecting their employees equates to…
…the USFS obstructing an official State OSH investigation by both with-holding FOIA-requested information without documenting/communicating their reasons for doing that…
…and without documenting their reasons for redacting (to the point of possibly tampering with that information/evidence) the information that they have just made public.
Marti—-Maybe I can help or try
First forget evidence and look at the information as having names attached that are FS Employees who lawyers are attempting to protect from any legal action.
First the redacted statements of the Blue Ridge Crew What they said could bring them into court to answer questions we do not know what they know or stated.
The same with all other FS employees on the Fire.
While it may be evidence at this point it is information tied to specific employees
That makes it harder to release so we have a double edged sword.
As I said the Court has the power to request any documents deemed evidence by either party The FS would have to release that evidence in full and the judge would deter its relevance to the case along with names of the employees that would be called for testimony so no one has really with held evidence till the case is set and goes to trial. That’s fairly simple as I am not a Lawyer but have sit and heard back and forth arguments by Lawyers in court over this same type of information. The FS would not be able to stop the court from getting the full video and the person who took it from having to testify as to its complete validity.
So right now it is a chess game to keep names of FS people private until the case comes to trial. Under certain legal terms they are allowed to redacted statements made by the people they represent.
Dose that help any there are legal terms and laws that are at work here but at this time they are not tampering with evidence unless the destroy it they are giving only what they have to under the law and still protect there client.
A simpleton’s explanation at best. There is also no Felony charges at this time.
so it is a civil law suit which changes a lot of the legal as I say mumbo jumbo.
It would seem that the FBI would get involved considering that millions in Federal Tax Monies have been squandered due to allowing this fire to an advanced stage and wild fire. Fema’s and BLM’s presence and observations in the early stages of the fire shows that the Feds were involved from the get go. There were federal lands that burned, albeit only 3%–still enough to involve the Feds. Also those Jet Liners that dumped thousands of dollars in retardant came from out of state, hence the crossing of state lines based on a felonious allowing of a fire to be the worse killer of humanity in many years. We heard of the arguement here in Yarnell of whether or not to put it out the first day or not and we have heard that a local dispacher was told to get rid of certain records pertaining to the fire. Those reports to us whether true or some people making up stories ought to at least be investigated and obviously not with the people who regard these investigations so lightly. To my way of thinking this situation demands an outside Federal Investigation. I am certain people have already contacted those outside agencies in a matter as serious as this one had become. I think it is called pork barrel money until it involves the death of men–then the realities of how operations are needlessly risking lives while ripping off the tax payer becomes criminal pork barrel.
I indeed see how the familes of these heroes are angry and add to that the people that have lost their homes and lives beyond that we begin to see that the tragedy extends beyond the lives of those heroes. What about the 33 deaths since the fire–the increased incident of lung problems and the loss of wild life. These are just a part of the mess debacle has created. Then you have people taking awards and bowing before audiences as though they did a great joy.
I hear of one even running for political office–If he winis I hope he is more successful there than he was on this fire.
Joy and I will shortly attend a meeting about how a memorial should be. We think it should go to the site that the state wants to arrest you for going to see. You can go to Mann Gulch or the Storm King sights with no trepidation–People pay their respects to those sites–but this one has been treated differently. Why? Maybe someone can inform me on that one.
We will also ask for a memorial in Yarnell for those whom have died since the fire–Some 33 that Joy has names for since the fire. Perhaps not all are totally related but older folks that live her (myself included if 71 is senior) but this fire indeed has been a significant factor in those deaths. I think even of that young man Zack Ashoor of Phoenix who stopped me as I was walking down the street of Yarnell. He wanted to know where the site where those men died. He told me he had been in some of the bars with the men and when he heard the news he had broken down and cried. He wanted to see the place. So I took my time to hike him there and I noticed he used some type of breathing device,. although he seemed to make it well at my slow pace. He told me he had asthma. Once above the site he said I am going down to that fence, I have to go to pay my respects. I told him he might get arrested–he replied he would stand before any judge on that. I found that he was actually working on a respirator that would save lives for firemen–he said oxygen apparatus was just too heavy but he was trying to improve one so that weight would not be a factor. — That man was another hero in my book and I believe that breathing that smoke and bad air right after the fire actually escalated his problem–but nothing would have stopped him from paying respect to those men. I know it has affected plenty of residents including myself and Joy when it comes to breathing properly.
Yea there is more to come and Joy is expecting more quality photos from sources she has lined up. I don’t know that there will ever be a break here until the whole truth and nothing but the truth comes out– We need all the help we can get and just as Joy tells people, no matter how insignificant someones testimony or photo may seem, it may be just the thing to unveil another truth.
I want to bring this to the top since identifying the camera Aaron was using and, thus, how it would have recorded those videos is so critical right now:
Methods says
NOVEMBER 13, 2014 AT 4:21 PM
“Not a huge piece of info, but from my experience of filming wildland fires with a GoPro, they don’t have the capabilities of a “zoom”. The small amount of Aaron’s videos that I’ve seen, he seems able to “zoom” in and out. Also, a GoPro has more of a fish eye lens which results in a wider view and some distortion around the edges. So my opinion is that Aaron is not using a GoPro.”
I’m asking back, since I’m really unfamiliar with these kinds of cameras.
Do you have any idea, at this point, what kind of camera Aaron might have been using, if not a GoPro?
And thank you so much for posting this.
From my experience, no “helmet cams” have the ability to zoom. These type of cameras are meant to capture action sports and give a first person perspective, so they tend to have wide angle lenses on them. I honestly don’t know what kind of camera Aaron was using.
One thing that I did notice with the file names of the “newly” released videos is that the ones that have a “R” at the end are viewable in 1080p (HD) while the others without the “R” are only viewable in 480p. My only explanation for this would be that Aaron was switching between “low” and “high” quality mode or he was using two separate cameras. Both explanations seem weird to me. Sorry if this info has all ready been discussed.
“R” = Redacted
OK. I’m gonna write about something that has been bugging me all along. I’ve written about it before, but these videos have something in them that puts a period on the end of all my thoughts.
Way downstream, on November 12, 2024 at 10:18 PM, WTKTT wrote:
“So just since Saturday… we finally see proof positive that the US Forestry Service has ALWAYS been withholding important evidence from both the families of the men who died AND the people charged ( by law ) with investigating the incident.
And now… since just 48 hours ago… we ALSO have proof that people being interviewed by ADOSH were ALSO ‘withholding information’ from them during their actual in-person interviews ( Cordes, Esquibel, others?).”
Long, long ago, I saw, in one of Joy’s photos, a truck in a place where it shouldn’t have been at that time, according to my understanding of things.
It was, as it turned out, after a bit of confusion, Rance Marquez truck. It was on the dozer line, just above where GM’s sup/chase trucks were parked. After I figured out the 4-hour time correction for Joy’s photos, I realized that truck was sitting there at 10:21 AM.
At first I thought that was Cougan Carother’s truck and I was wondering “Why is Cougan there at that time???”
Then I figured out it was Rance’s truck, and still had the same question.
According to Rance’s Unit Logs, which he wrote up specifically for ADOSH, he arrived at ICP at about 1030, was briefed, had Cougan assigned to him as STL(T), and they left the ICP between 1130 and 1200, found Gary Cordes, who led them up to the dozer line, and visited w/Blue Ridge, and then headed up to the dozer line.
That narrative basically agrees with what Blue Ridge and Cordes says about their arrival.
So, again, why is his truck on the dozer line at 10:30? That was 1/2 hour after Blue Ridge got there, according to Joy’s photos.
He also says in his ADOSH interview:
“243 And by the time I left, um, so by the time I got radio – radio’s cloned and mobile clone – handheld cloned, all that kind of stuff, um, you know, it was
about 12:00 – 12:30 before I – about 11:30, 12:00 to – to – and 12:30 before I got
a ICP. At the last minute, um, another individual was assigned to go with me uh, by the name of Cougan Carothers as a Strike Team Leader Trainee.”
OK OK OK that could be just a matter of what our counselor says, that, in essence, mostly firefighters aren’t paying a lot of attention to their watches when they’re on a fire.
But that did kind of catch my attention.
Which led into the next thing that began bugging me.
When I was vehicle-searching, I noticed that Cougan’s blue pickup crossed the A2A videocam, heading east at 3:51 PM. I never saw it head back west.I realized that that didn’t make sense because I had just read Rance’s interview and unit logs.
His narrative and that blue truck appearance didn’t jive.
In his unit logs he wrote that he and Cougan were working, alongside five members of the Price-Valley Helitack Crew, Dan Philbin, and a bunch of “resources” doing structure protection (I think in the Sickles Road area) when, around 1600 the intensity increased, a SEAT dropped a load of retardant, he then had people mopping up, and then heard Air Attack ask if “they could hear the helicopter.” And then the Mayday communications began.
In his interview he said:
“1406 Uh, after the fire got um, was no longer a threat to the structures, we organized a little bit of mop up and um, I heard that and then right after that – right after the fire front passed those houses and the smoke kind of just subsided a little bit, um, I heard air – air to ground, which I’m at the time, I was told it was Lead 1-1, um, asking someone on the ground if they could see the helicopter and then um, a little bit later, I heard them ask if they could hear the helicopter which that got me uh, I knew something was not right exactly. Didn’t know what and then um, there was a loud – someone yelled into the radio and uh, and then who- and the Air Attack responded by whoever was yelling into the radio to please stop and uh, then he just kept calling for Granite Mountain. There was never a response after that.”
Then, according to his interview narrative he and Cougan were organized into a search and rescue group and sent down to Yarnell.
The problem is Cougan’s truck passing the Air2Air videocam at 3;51 PM.
So, I thought, well, maybe Cougan or both of them (they pretty much stuck together all day) went out to 89 for something then and came back. But it still bugged me. Partially because I never saw it come back west.
So, it turns out, Cougan’s truck is practically front and center starting at +3:37 in the Helmetcam video M2U00264. Cougan drives up Shrine Road to the point where Aaron is standing, turns around in the wide area where people coming in , including Tony Sciacca just earlier, were turning around, and they heads back out. This is, vaguely apparently, just before M2U00265, the Last Minutes video.
Cougan [and possibly Rance] couldn’t possibly have been at Sickles Road doing a big structure protection operation and on Shrine Road at the same time.
That’s a “timing mistake” a few orders of magnitude more serious than the one regarding his activities that morning.
Remember,
“And now… since just 48 hours ago… we ALSO have proof that people being interviewed by ADOSH were ALSO ‘withholding information’ from them during their actual in-person interviews ( Cordes, Esquibel, others?).”
And thanks, Aaron, for finally showing me what Tony Sciacca looked like on this fire. Not knowing that, while trying to identify all the people in the Ranch House Restaurant parking lot, was VERY frustrating.
LOL. The moment I saw that Blue Pickup turning around right there in the St. Joseph Shrine parking lot my immediate thought was… “Geez… Marti is going to do a big WTF over THAT… it’s not supposed to be there at that time. No way.’
Even now… does it matter where any particular truck was when?
The answer is still YES… because it MATTERS whether we can trust people’s accounts of WHERE they were and WHAT they were doing and WHEN.
It also still matters whether external evidence supports statements being made in people’s testimony to both the SAIT and ADOSH.
It matters very much.
I just checked Gary Cordes’ ADOSH interview one more time to make sure I wasn’t missing something.
He DOES tell ADOSH he never had any doubts that Marsh was headed for the Boulder Springs Ranch… and that he thought they all had ‘plenty of time to get there’…
…but it’s been confirmed now.
Gary Cordes NEVER mentions to the investigators that he actually had a PLAN to make SURE Marsh and Granite Mountain got out of there safely’ and that even before the deployment he specifically instructed his Task Force Leader Trainee Tyson Esquibel to send an engine over there and then specifically told Esquibel to tell that Engine Captain/Crew to ‘watch for Granite Mountain’ arriving there and to then ‘make sure they get out safely’.
There is NOTHING in his testimony about this. Zero. Zip. Nada.
So… we really are back to not being able to trust that ANY of these firefighters were telling ADOSH ‘the whole story’. We know now that a lot of them were, themselves, probably ‘withholding information’ from investigators.
With regards to Gary Cordes’ plan that we now can hear him sharing with Tyson Esquibel… has it dawned on anyone else that what Cordes was essentially doing was telling Esquibel to send an Engine over to the BSR and tell it to act as LOOKOUT for Granite Mountain?
Cordes is telling Esquibel to send an engine and be sure to tell him to ‘watch for Granite Mountain’ ( to arrive there ) and to ‘make sure they get out safely’.
That sure as hell sounds like someone telling someone else to establish a LOOKOUT for another group of men.
It never happened.
It was too late for Cordes’ PLAN to make any difference.
But what if he had given those instruction to Esquibel even 15 minutes earlier?
What if there really HAD been an Engine sitting at the Boulder Springs Ranch with Cordes’ specific instructions ( via Esquibel ) to ‘watch for them arriving there and make sure they get out safely’.
Maybe ( just maybe ) that Engine could have SEEN the danger and would have had enough time to WARN them about what they were walking straight into… and everything might have been different that day.
15 minutes might have made all the difference. There would have been time for them to either start HAULING ASS forward to the Ranch and (perhaps) beat the fire there… or start HAULING ASS backwards and make it back up ( and OVER ) that ridge.
Yes… I know… Gary Cordes DID tell ADOSH that he actually thought Marsh and Granite Mountain had ‘plenty of time’ to get to the BSR… and I assume that was his way of telling ADOSH why he wasn’t more concerned about them that day and didn’t do more to VERIFY where they were or what their real STATUS was…
…but I still can’t help thinking.
What if…
Maybe another ‘Lesson Learned’ here… for ANYONE in a command position?
If you actually KNOW exactly where a group of men is headed under dynamic fire conditions… and there is ANY thought in your mind that they might actually need Engine and/or LOOKOUT support…
…don’t hesitate.
Do it NOW. Not later.
Your instincts might be right… and minutes might matter.
I could answer this but it makes Cordes a very stupid OPS to even allow it in the first place. Extreme calculated risk to move a crew??????????????
This also completely ties into the reality that there was no established ‘Division Z Supervisor’ in that area that day… at this crucial time.
We now have evidence that BOTH Blue Ridge Superintendent Brian Frisby
and SPGS1 Gary Cordes were ‘picking up the slack’ there at various times and taking it upon themselves to do things ( or just coordinate things ) that a ‘Division Supervisor’ for that sector would have normally been doing.
Cordes’ instinct to send an engine to BSR to ‘make sure Granite gets out of there safely’ was correct ( even if he executed the plan too late )… but is that something a ‘Structure Protection Guy’ in a sector of a fire should have even been responsible for doing?
I think Cordes and Frisby were VERY much aware that they were ‘on their own’ down there, even after Musser showed up… and they were just doing things they felt needed to be done because no one else was on top of all this.
I think the absolutely botched management structure of this fire really DID contribute to the ‘accident’ ( and all the other near ‘accidents’ ) that day.
Again I say lessons learned Esperanza FIRE you would be sending Engines down a road being over run by fire to a very hot SZ if they got there How would they help a crew 2/3 of the way down a mountain?
Just putting more fire fighters in harms way or a structure FF attitude.
It was way to late by the time he was asking.
Reply to Joy A Collura post on November 12, 2014 at 10:40 am
>> Joy said…
>>
>> Also in the one video that homeowner with white truck I am working
>> with cold case to identify if that is our missing man—suicide hiker— who
>> after the fire went missing…the neighboring folks stated they saw fire
>> folks on his property as well in the Shrine area when he was still around
>> so it is interesting if it was Mark Danielson and will have to investigate
>> as to why they had fire meetings on his property he was staying.
>> I will get into this more later on when I have the time.
Joy… if you are talking about that moment in video M2U00266R where
that white pickup with the ‘camper top’ and ‘metal rack on top’ comes out
of that driveway at +2 minutes and 53 seconds into the video… then here is
some more information on that.
I don’t know if any of this will help you at all… but on the mere CHANCE
that it might… here it is…
** Aaron Hulburd Helmet-Camera Video M2U00266R
This is the video that has face of the driver of that white pickup truck manually ‘pixelated’ by whoever was redacting these videos.
There also is no moment when the license plate of the white truck is visible… but after the driver of the white pickup truck agrees to drive the OTHER vehicle he says he owns out ( which is an orange/rust ISUZU )… the license plate of that ISUZU does become ‘visible’ for two frames in the video. See below for possible license plate number.
The ADDRESS of the house that the firefighters in the video are standing in front of with the driveway where the white pickup ’emerges’ is…
16863 W Shrine Rd., Yarnell, AZ 85362
According to PUBLIC records on the Yavapai County Assessors ‘Parcel Lookup’ website… the ‘parcel number’ for the property where the white pickup truck emerged is…
203-11-104F
Public Information for Parcel 203-11-104F:
Physical Address: 16863 W Shrine Dr.
Owner on Record: BECKETT CARL E & ARLENE M JT
Owner’s Mailing Address: 2165 S JAVALINA AVE, YUMA, AZ 85364-6171
From Video clip M2U00266R
—————————————————————————-
+2:53
The white pickup truck is now coming out of his driveway and pulling up to Jason Clawson ( in the white helmet ) on Shrine Road.
+2:54
(Aaron Hulburd speaking to KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell): Is anybody else in here? This is the last person?
+2:57
(Bravo 33 – John Burfiend): Division Alpha… Bravo 33 on Air-To-Ground
+3:00
The white pickup stops at the end of the driveway and the driver can now be seen. His FACE has been ‘pixelated’ by someone and that is one of the reasons this filename has the ‘R’ suffix on the end. This video has been ‘Redacted’ in places.
The white pickup has a full ‘camper top’ and a black ‘metal rack’ on the top that extends the length of the camper top and all the way over the cab of the truck as well.
The driver is wearing a white, short sleeved shirt. Possibly just a white T-shirt.
The driver is now about to ask Jason Clawson if one of them could drive another vehicle that he has ‘down the road a ways’.
(Driver of the white pickup): Can I get one a you guys to drive my other vehicle down the road a ways?
Jason Clawson agrees to move his other vehicle.
+4:31
Jason Clawson appears coming down the driveway driving an orange/rust colored ISUZU SUV with WHITE ‘canoe rack’ style horizontal bars on the top over the cab and the very back of the roof. It has ‘square’ headlights and an ISUZU logo plate on the front grill. Spare tire with a WHITE interior rim is mounted externally on the left rear of the back of the ISUZU.
At +4:36 in the video… the license plate on the back of the ISUZU becomes ‘in focus’ for only 2 video frames. It is an Arizona plae that *appears* to be number… “J9J LTM”
+4:38
Jason Clawson drives the ISUZU to the EAST on Shrine Road, following the white pickup truck.
—————————————————————————–
Thanks for this.
I was seriously wondering who that fire-fighter driving that truck was.
I still haven’t gotten solid enough on what the Prescott Three look like.
That moment when Jason Clawson pulls out of the driveway in the ISUZU and looks directly at Aaron Hulburd’s camera is actually the ONLY time in ALL of these video sequences when we can see exactly what Jason Clawson looks like.
In other online photos of him… he is clean shaven.
This day ( June 30, 2013 ), Jason Clawson had a ‘goatee style’ beard growing.
great information. having to go to Yarnell meeting so my time is up here but look forward to looking at this post again.
WTKTT, kudos to you for the fade clips from the air footage.
I have no clue if they are accurate or not, but I most certainly could not have done them! Good on you! If you end up doing the rest of them, I think that will be incredibly valuable (almost as much as the video clip with Musser in it 😉 ).
Anyway, just wanted to give you a shout-out and kudos.
Reply to Elizabeth post on November 13, 2014 at 5:05 pm
>> Elizabeth wrote…
>>
>> WTKTT, kudos to you for the fade clips from the air footage.
>> I have no clue if they are accurate or not.
They are accurate, counselor.
My only point was to say “Good on ya, WTKTT.” And I meant it.
Reply to Bob Powers post on November 13, 2014 at 9:48 am
>> Bob Powers wrote…
>>
>> Questions from a dummy????????
>>
>> The breaks in the Head cam video would they show start and stop times?
Yes.
>> Bob Powers said…
>>
>> If the head cam ran continuously with out being turned off and on why
>> the breaks in the 17 videos?
It is actually POSSIBLE that Aaron Hulburd could have been filming CONTINUOUSLY,
without choosing to STOP the camera… yet the result would still be MULTIPLE
filenames ( all starting with M2U prefix ) on the camera’s SD memory card.
Actually… a LOT of ‘Helmet Cameras’ operate that way.
Some will only record video in 5 minute ‘segments’ before creating another
separate filename on the memory card.
For example…
Review of HD 720P DVR Waterproof Helmet Camera
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhqP17NQlYo
From the ‘Comments’ associated with this video…
———————————————————-
I bought one of those Chinese cheapy helmet cams off eBay.
It captures video files in 5 min segments (continuously).
———————————————————-
So anyone using a Helmet Camera like the one above could
shoot ‘continuously’… but they would still end up with a bunch
of 5 minutes video files ( each with its own filename ) on their
memory card.
We still do NOT know what kind of Helmet Camera Hulburd was using.
It’s pretty obvious it was NOT a ‘Chinese Cheapy’… but it still MAY have
been using the same technique of allowing ‘continuous filming’… but
still breaking everything out into multiple ‘filenames’ on the memory card.
We KNOW that the video ‘segment’ from Hulburd’s camera that was released
back in December and captured the MAYDAY traffic was 7 minutes and 49
seconds long.
That means that even if Hulburd’s camera was going to ‘break up’ continuous
filming into ‘segments’… those ‘segment lengths’ were probably more like a
default of 10 minutes each rather than just 5 like a ‘Chinese Cheapy’ would do.
>> Bob Powers also wrote…
>>
>> Another gut check— was the video edited by the FS some time ago
>> to the 43 min. sections and that is what they released when requested.
>> Along with additional Redactions
>> When in fact there is a continues video of say 1 or 2 hours.
It’s possible.
See other comments about this below.
The footage that HAS been released shows that Aaron Hulburd was a true ‘videophile’.
He LOVED that Helmet Camera and he LOVED to USE it.
The footage released reveals that his default HABIT was to simply turn the camera ON
and LEAVE IT RUNNING until he had a very, very good reason to have to turn it OFF.
>> Bob Powers also wrote…
>>
>> It is hard to believe the person knowingly would have turned the video
>> off and on in segments especially with all the action and audio going on.
Yes.. .it is… but see new information above.
Even if he WAS filming ‘continuously’… most Helmet Cameras are still going to
‘break up’ that contiguous footage into multiple fixed-length ‘segments’ on
the memory card… each with their own filename.
>> Bob Powers also wrote…
>>
>> Note the ride up the mountain in the ATV
>> If he was turning off and on why not off during that segment?
Exactly. He wasn’t doing that because that was not his HABIT.
His obvious HABIT when he thought something important was happening
was to turn it ON and then just LEAVE it on… no matter what.
As Marti said… THAT is what a ‘Helmet Camera’ is FOR.
It’s so you can capture EVERYTHING going on and not worry you are ‘missing’ anything.
If all you want to do is shoot short video clips… you can save yourself a LOT of money and just use a damn iPhone and then put it back in your pocket every time.
>> Bob Powers also said
>>
>> I contend there are segments edited out of the Video and that
>> is why we have 18 seperiate videos
I contend the same… but see above.
Even if AZF had just released 2 hours of absolutely contiguous video from
Hulburd’s Helmet Camera ( with no ‘cuts’ whatsoever )… we would STILL be
seeing a long list of separate M2Uxxxxx filenames because of the way most
of the Helmet Cameras STORE the video on the memory card.
>> Bob Powers also wrote…
>>
>> Does this camera stamp date and time as most do?
Yes. It would also be timestamping the ‘segments’ of a continuous video.
>> Was that intentionally removed?
Yes.
Until we see, and can examine, M2Uxxxxx files from Hulburd’s camera that still have all the EXIF metadata contained in them… then no FOIA request has been successfully filled ( according to law ).
Very interesting, thanks!
I can understand why the camera would break the stream into pieces–write-speeds to the memory card. I would imagine that would vary depending on the resolution/format of the video it is capturing.
If it was doing that–breaking up long video runs into smaller segments, it still probably wouldn’t have really huge time-breaks between them, I would think.
But I haven’t watched that many headcam videos.
It would also mean that the whole long total video stream Aaron most likely would have been capturing would have been file-name sequenced in order.
That would mean that whoever was picking and choosing what to publish would still have had to rename those files in order to publish them with the names they have here. Or they wouldn’t have ended up with the names they have here.
Unless Aaron didn’t film anything between 2:30 PM and the Shrine Road sequence.
And thus didn’t have all that footage that included the Options Conversation/Whatever/Related Stuff.
The duration of the gap between video chunks would also, I would think, vary depending on the speed of the card it’s writing to.
Most people who shoot video shoot it on the fastest cards they can afford to get their hands on.
Marti— I am of the opinion if they made breaks as WTKTT says at 10 min. intervals
even the Breaks should no stop the filming for more than the blink of an eye.
That would be very frustrating if you were losing video you wanted.
What would explain the shorter Videos?
My opinion the M2U numbers assigned were done during the copy over process to U-tube. What dose M2U mean????? This was not the original videos so an assignment of numbers could have come as the segments were copied just my thoughts…… More questions not noted by the FS
>> Bob Powers said…
>>
>> I am of the opinion if they made breaks as WTKTT says at
>> 10 min. intervals even the Breaks should no stop the filming
>> for more than the blink of an eye.
That’s correct… but there wouldn’t even be a ‘blink of an eye’.
The device is ‘caching’ the video and is able to break it up and
store it WHILE the filming continues with absolutely not one
frame ever missing from the final result.
Once you COMBINE all these separate video segment ‘files’ from the memory card back into one long contiguous MOVIE… you would NEVER know where the ‘breaks’ originally were. Unless that camera was an absolute piece of shit… you wouldn’t even see any little ‘flashes’ or ‘burps’ at the points where the video segments recombined.
That includes the audio. There wouldn’t even be an ‘pops’ or ‘clicks’, either.
>> Bob Powers also wrote…
>>
>> That would be very frustrating if you were losing video you wanted.
Exactly. If any ‘video camera’ was doing that to your movies… you would take it right back to the store and ask for your money back.
>> Bob Powers also said…
>>
>> What would explain the shorter Videos?
Only 4 possibilities, really…
1) Hulburd really was turning his camera on/off during that critical time on Shrine Road and ‘accidentally’ missed some of the most crucial moments.
2) Footage has been cut from the START of the actual M2Uxxxx file.
3) Footage has been cut from the END of the actual M2Uxxxx file.
4) Both 2 and 3 above.
Personally… I really doubt it was ‘door number 1’ up above.
It just wouldn’t match Hulburd’s HABIT for all the other videos we see.
The same instincts I had that KNEW there HAD to be more Hulburd footage ovrerall are simply saying “No way” he would have missed some of those important moments on Shrine Road… OR that he would not have used the camera for more than 2 hours between filming Todd Abel’s RECON flight… and then also missed all the other vehicles evacuating the Shrine area.
>> Bob Powers on Shrine road
>> My opinion the M2U numbers assigned were done during the
>> copy over process to U-tube. What dose M2U mean?????
As far as I know… the M2U prefix being used for video filenames indicates the device recording the video is one that is manufactured by Sony… or even if it is sold under a different brand, Sony would still be the OEM ( Original Equipment Manufacturer ).
M2U is also a known file extension that could also appear on the ends of files which defines its content. It is NOT normally used to identify video files. The M2U file extension is normally reserved for format files that are specific to the Maxthon Cloud Browser.
>> Bob Powers also wrote…
>>
>> This was not the original videos so an assignment of
>> numbers could have come as the segments were copied
Yes. It’s possible.
I’m gonna go all ‘geeky’ on ya here for a moment, Mr. Powers… but what you are about to see is that there IS more evidence ‘lurking’ in these videos.
Even though what has been released are not ‘byte-for-byte’ copies of the originals and all the original DEVICE metadata has been purposely REMOVED from them… there are STILL some pieces of EXIF metadata that will survive most ‘conversions’ and ‘editing’.
One of those is the ‘original image size’, which can also give you a clue about the DEVICE that took the video.
MOST of the M2Uxxxxx video clips… even as they are sitting on Arizona Forestry’s YouTube channel… are showing a width/height dimension of 854 pixels wide by 480 pixels high.
854×480 is a pre-determined video dimension known as FWVGA
FWVGA = Full Wide Video Graphics Array.
However… any file in the AZF release that has had an ‘R’ added to the end of it ends up with a DIFFERENT video resolution.
All the files with an ‘R’ added seem to be in the 1280×720 format.
Also… the M2Uxxxx clips that have retained what appears to be the original FWVGA ( 854×480 ) formatting are also showing a sound codec handler named Lavf54.29.104…
…but the M2Uxxxx files in the release that have an ‘R’ added to the filename are simply showing a sound codec handler name of ‘Apple’.
So what the hell does all that mean?
It means that the ORIGINALS ( from Hulburd’s camera ) were probably shot with a device that uses the FWVGA 854×480 dimensions and the Lavf54.29.104 audio codec…
…but files that have been EDITED by US Forestry were edited on an
Apple computer and then ‘saved’ back to disk with an altered format
of 1280×720 and a reconvert on the audio track using Apple’s sound codec.
This does NOT mean that the ones still using the FWVGA 854×480 format and the Lav54.29.104 codec have NOT been altered.
They still might have been ‘truncated’ either at the start, or the end… or both… and still retained those settings of the orginal metadata.
It just means that it is perfectly obvious which files the US Forestry was editing manually and making actual CHANGES to the interior of the video before ‘saving’ the material back to disk… and that all these files they were EDITING were being done on an Apple computer.
Even if they hadn’t been adding that stupid ‘R’ letter to the ends of the filenames they are ADMITTING to altering… we would still have been able to tell which ones they were monkeying with on their Apple Computer.
The combination of the M2Uxxxxx file naming format ( which might mean it has to be a Sony-based Camera? ), the FWVGA 854×480 default video resolution, AND the fact that the device might be using the Lav54.29.104 audio codecs might all help tell us exactly what DEVICE Aaron Hulburd was using.
I am still checking on that. Stay tuned.
I still maintain that the US Forestry Service has still NOT lawfully complied with any legal FOIA request because we are not seeing the actual EXIF DEVICE information in these files.
You are allowed to make redactions and claim ‘exemptions’ under the FOIA rules… but you are still supposed to deliver ‘essentially identical’ copies of the material you have in your possession.
Removing MOST of the original EXIF data is still a no-no, legally speaking.
That answered a lot thanks
One question if the camera was not making files why all the M2U files?
My humble brain still says they were added during the edit of the original Video to make the Files look in sequence which they are not as we are missing what are in the breaks.
Humble and simple mind M2Uxxxxxxx ME TO YOU #######
Edited by some one and sent to someone with the number sequence.
To Simple Right _________ oh well????????
Reply to Bob Powers post on November 14, 2014 at 12:09 pm
>> Bob Powers wrote…
>>
>> One question if the camera was not making files
>> why all the M2U files?
>>
>> My humble brain still says they were added during
>> the edit of the original Video to make the Files look
>> in sequence which they are not as we are missing
>> what are in the breaks.
Well… to entertain the scenario that we really are looking at separate ‘chopped out’ clips from what was once maybe just ONE or TWO ( long ) ‘M2Uxxxxx’ video files… all you have to do is imagine how ANYONE would go about accomplishing that.
Aaron Hulburd himself tells KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell that there was at least one point where he had turned his camera off for 2-3 minutes.
I now believe ( and I think Marti agrees ) that what he might be telling Yowell there refers directly to that moment at the end of the original 7 minute and 49 second MAYDAY footage when Hulburd has put his Helmet on the top of his truck… and then appears to reach up and turn it OFF for a moment.
THAT could have been the moment when he was ‘changing batteries’, and it might have taken those 2-3 minutes he was telling Yowell about.
Other than THOSE 2 or 3 minutes Hulburd actually tells Yowell about… Hulburd says he ‘recorded ALL of it’… and is obviously STILL trying to record everything that is happening even to the point where we hear him telling Yowell about the 2-3 minutes he had it OFF.
My point here is that Hulburd himself is heard telling Yowell he had turned his camera off at least ONCE in this timeframe… but for no more than 2-3 minutes.
That means… for sure and certain.. that there would have been at least TWO ‘M2Uxxxxxx’ filenames there on his memory card.
So now imagine you are some ‘tech’ at US Forestry and Mike Dudley and Tom Harbour ( who signed the FOIA letter John Dougherty received from USFS ) have just told you exactly what parts of the overall video are NOT going to be released… and it is now YOUR job to ‘make this look good’.
Of COURSE you would simply see that the longer files all begin with M2U prefix plus a sequential numbering scheme.
So whatever CUTS you end up with to fulfill the ‘assignment’… of COURSE you would simply take it upon yourself to follow the existing ‘M2U’ prefix and sequential numbering scheme.
Again… I am NOT saying it went down like this… but if it DID… then it makes perfect sense that whoever was tasked with ‘chopping up’ the originals would stick with the M2U + number naming scheme.
One more thing that might be neither here nor there… but is still ‘interesting’.
Whoever was tasked with REDACTING and EDITING these Hulburd movie files up that at the US Forestry Service really knew what they were doing and how to use whatever video editing tools they were using.
One of the PROOFS of that is the moment at + 2 minutes and 53 seconds into video M2U00266R when that ‘white pickup’ is coming out of the driveway towards the spot where Jason Clawson, Aaron Hulburd and KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell are standing on Shrine Road.
That is the moment when the US Forestry Service decided they needed to MASK the FACE of the citizen driving that white pickup truck.
They simply used a ‘floating pixelation’ BLUR circle to mask his face as he pulled out of the driveway and Hulburd filmed him talking with Jason Clawson ( in the white helmet ).
Someone had to ‘apply’ this BLUR circle to the man’s face MANUALLY… as the video played.
Sometimes that is really tricky to do… and you have to be really GOOD at it to get it totally right.
Well… whoever was doing that ‘Face BLUR’ for the US Forestry Service was, in fact, VERY good at it.
I checked the entire sequence frame by frame because I knew that sometimes even a single ‘frame’ can be missed and you would still get to see the person’s face.
Whoever was doing that ‘BLUR OUT’ for USFS never missed a beat.
There is even a moment when he/she STOPPED the BLURRING because Jason Clawson’s back was now to the camera and was successfully masking the driver’s face… but there is moment even with Clawson blocking the face when the driver simply LEANS FORWARD for a few frames and his face emerges from Clawson’s left side.
Well… they caught that TOO.
Whoever was doing the BLUR OUT caught that one-or-two frame moment when the guy’s face became visible and they added some BLUR OUT to THOSE frames, too.
So they were GOOD. They didn’t make some of the mistakes others do when attempting this ‘pixelation’ mask-out on someone’s face.
>> Bob Powers also asked…
>>
>> Humble and simple mind M2Uxxxxxxx
>> ME TO YOU #######
>> Edited by some one and sent to someone with
>> the number sequence.
>>
>> To Simple Right _________ oh well????????
The ‘M2U’ movie filename prefix IS a known, valid naming convention for some video devices.
Example: Just Google ‘M2U00261’ yourself and you will see what I mean. TONS of ‘Google hits’ are going to appear and the are all valid VIDEOS on various places like YouTube, VIMEO, WatchToday, and other common video sharing sites.
So there ARE, in fact, a LOT of ‘devices’ out there using the M2U file naming prefix and a LOT of people are using them to shoot videos.
Also… M2U is a known acronym for an online service called ‘Movies To You’. I don’t think that has anything to do with Aaron Hulburd or his camera, though.
Interesting and Thanks—- I dropped the last in as a chuckle to a geek …
From M2U… thanks.
It’s going to take some humor to get through this latest round of bullshit ‘brought to you by’ the USFS and Arizona Forestry.
And, also, I think it’s premature to assume at this point that Aaron’s camera was doing that short-segment “chunking” thing.
I don’t know as much about higher end cams like the GoPro, but, as I was writing what I wrote above about Rance’s narrative, I started thinking about that camera they used for the Air2Air videos. It’s the Contour, one of those “Best 10s” in the article.
It was capable of recording the long videos in that Air2Air collection without any gaps/chunking. So I guess it depends on the camera’s ability to write to a card continuously as fast as the card can be written to without buffering.
Personally, given the huge popularity of the GoPro for this sort of stuff, I’m guessing it can do that also.
So, I guess, until we have access to some version of the “original videos,” with their camera metadata, it’s really not possible to know if Aaron was using a camera capable of truly “continuously recording” or one that has to write to the card in smaller pieces.
Don’t know if I can find out what make the camera is but am working with my
confections will see if I can get something for us. Along shot but maybe..
Thanks. It would be really helpful to know what camera Aaron was using.
Marti… see a longer post above.
There ARE some clues here to help us.
All of the M2Uxxxxx files released by US Forestry that do NOT have an ‘R’ on the end of the filename are all showing what appears to be some of the original EXIF data.
The combination of the M2Uxxxxx file naming format ( which might mean it has to be a Sony-based Camera? ), the FWVGA 854×480 default video resolution, AND the fact that the device might be using the Lav54.29.104 audio codecs might all help tell us exactly what DEVICE Aaron Hulburd was using.
Also… if this device BELONGS to the Prescott National Forest… you would think it should be easy to find a purchase order since you and I ( and a lot of other taxpayers ) actually PAID for it.
That’s also what blows my mind in all of this.
All of this back and forth… and gamesmanship… and struggle to simply uncover what is supposed to already be PUBLIC information is basically just ‘your tax dollars at work’.
We are NOT dealing with Exxon Mobile, here.
Every single person involved with both the Yarnell Hill Fire AND both of the investigations… and every single person we are having to deal with now at AZF and USFS… are CIVIL SERVANTS.
Their paychecks ALL come from US.
Someone needs to remind them of that fact.
Joy and I attended the local town meeting last night. They did say they are in the process of creating a memorial for the 19 Fallen. When the committee meets for that we hope to be there. We would also like to see a memorial for those who have succumbed since the fire. The local Fire EMT said they have been taking in the dead at an average of two a month since the fire. Well Joy has counted 33 dead since the fire and is still counting. Now considering that there are only between 2 and 3 hundred homes, many empty or just used as a second residence, that is a lot of people. The population is only 649 by the 2010 census and has not changed a lot– 645 2014, Now we see how that disaster not only killed 19 good firemen but also cut short many lives since. Stress from loss of home is one of the greatest stressors one can endure. Heart attack, lung diseases, cancer deaths, COPD are all exacerbated —especially in the elderly. They are much more affected by this–one lady Joy knew well died within two weeks after her home was destroyed. Both Joy and I have felt the effects on our breathing and she too has been diagnosed with terminal factors at her young age of 42. So there is much to be considered in a situation that could easily been handled the first day, yet was not.
Joy confronted the local new fire chief for Yarnell. We had been getting word from people that he had said he wanted us arrested for hiking people up above the site where the 19 died. We only hike 100 percent legal, not directly to the fence but on the mountain above that place. He said he had no comment when Joy confronted him. Anyway it did bring on a cursory investigation of his background qualifications. Best we could find he only has had EMT experience and never has fought any kind of fire. Perhaps he has but we haven’t found that information. We wonder how those fire chief’s get their qualifications. Well for me I like Dr. Ted Putnam’s qualifications–11 years smoke jumper puts him in the realm of those who know their business–and he is damn good at investigating fires. Whew he did teach me a lot and humbles my fire fighting experience when years ago my Dad and I would contain lightening strikes with shovels, pick and axe.
I do hope you enjoy the new photos and get some more clarity– That Marti is so good at taking those photos apart and connecting the dots–and thanks Bob Powers and the Murray Taylor’s of the world. If this fire chief does not pan out I hope we get one of those qualified like you fellows.
Say I give much credit to Joy. She has worked almost non-stop on this and has come up with evidence that I am sure certain people wince at. One government investigator wrote “Oh Shit ” from evidence she once sent him. We did not know what that meant but was likely an apropos comment.
And about Sonny–I too wandered around after the fire–we lost our apartment number 15 at the Oak Park Motel shortly after the fire and that was directly related to the fire. I was a homeless wanderer in Montana for a time just sleeping in my Jeep Wagoneer. I hitch hiked from near Salt Lake City after the Jeep blew up, then wound up back here with Joy in Yarnell. This fire has had its toll on all of us and we do wonder why these things are allowed to progress to the point that it has killed so many young firemen and caused plenty of pain and consternation for the residents as well. So yes, we will not cast those men to the wind– but we will continue to learn every little detail and truth in this debacle and this we have to believe will save some good ones from another disaster such as we have seen here.
Joy and I do have blazers that say CHANGE THE WAY THEY FIGHT FIRES on the back and 6-30-13 on the front.
Thanks to you all for your concerns and work–the thing that honors the 19 heroes and all those in the fire fighting profession.
Thanks, Sonny, and you are so welcome.
It would be interesting to corral the data that could compare the Yarnell fatality rates before the fire vs after the fire. My mom is 93 and I see how relatively “fragile” she is. Which is way more than I am, turning 63 this month, and finding myself way more “fragile” than I was just five or so years ago. That was one of the things that struck me on this fire–how so many elders were left at risk from it. And, definitely, Joy, at her relatively young age, shouldn’t be having the health issues she is having.
And, as I was watching the recently released videos, how Aaron and the guys around him were coughing so hard.
So sorry to hear of what you lost after the fire. So inspired by what you continued to do, continuing to press on after everything.
Interesting about the blazers. I have, on my right wrist, the white bracelet from Julieanne Ashcraft that says “Be Better” and “Yarnell 19.” The one our Vice President wears. The one that inspires me, every day, to “Be Better.”
And yes, we will continue to plug for every little detail this fire, and the 19 that it killed, are trying to speak to us.
yeah! it worked!
Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 9:19 AM
the Yarnell library pcs are down today in 15 minutes the technician will be here so this will be quick than we are off to Dan the Garden guy to get some free garden plants to make a memorial garden for the 19 and the many losses in Yarnell/Peeples since the fire today. Now, the Yarnell Meeting I did get snarks believe it or not replies that “you are a Congress women—WHY YOU AT YARNELL MEETING?” Thank God we are one another’s listed caregivers to wash their comment out…same folks that hugged me and greeted me with a sworded tongue and piercing death look than today looking to hug. You learn who is FOR REALS in this town when you attend a town meeting with government folks & some cronies there too. What is funny too because I canceled my subscription. To what? Long ago to other peoples “issues”…I do not even let it phase me. They are the ones that want to move forward I reckon. I also learned 2 had us privately investigated and they think I am into real estate. never. OH MY! WAS THEIR PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR “GOOGLE”??? There is 8 Joy Collura in the USA and 5 of my maiden name so I am sure the only thing before this fire I was online for was HikeArizona…when I dabbled in the limelight stuff you might see me but I think I requested Tony Tarantino/Pacino family to omit any public information of me in the mid 2000s in regards to my culinary ice art photos or online network communications. I was not an online person much except to communicate to here and there folks. I mainly did my hiking adventures and just did the housewife thing so ohhh what a turn out on your PI crap. Anyways, gotta run…tech is here. Write more on the Yarnell meeting soon and other new information.
Now it is 3:50 and ten minute to closing and I sent anyone I had on my email area the new information we got today via new photos via photos off 2 IPOD’s and camera Olympus fe-5010 12 megapixel from the same person wants to be unnamed due to local politics and to help on P6300649 since I know for fact that answer it is the prison Lewis Crew with Fred Andrews standing. The rest of the pics MARTI REED came to mind…look forward to her looking at people and trucks and such and her feedback…THESE ARE PROPERLY TIME STAMPED. about time.
Already more photos are in midst of delivery to Sonny’s snail mail.
oh and my hiking page w w w . zazzle . c o m /congress_arizona*
otherwise I dont do internet
Will look for that, thanks!
And, yeah, I’ve had trouble posting, even when doing it correctly. Learned to copy the post before posting it, just in case.
I think the site is overwhelmed today, with posters and readers. Which is, all in all, a good thing.
wow, this is my 28th attempt so before writing it all to have it not copy/paste
TEST POST
As I sais back on the 18th there was a whole Video out there with a lot of information on it I was told of some of that info which was copied from Radio traffic which would put Marsh in a bad light. also the argument.
On the 13th of Oct. people were viewing a full video in Prescott some of the info out of that was some Family members were upset with what was shown. ( don’t know now what Families saw it or just 1)
There has been some specific info that came out of that showing that triggered the info I got about it and released here. Some I was deeply concerned about and would not bring up here for the sake of the Families that check here.
So all I am saying is yes there is more than we got A lot more and I knew people were viewing it before it was released as john had also found out it existed. Facts that are right in front of us…
In this case, the simplest explanation does seem to be that there is more out there. It explains why informal reports such as yours a few weeks ago, which have normally been pretty reliable, in this case did not reflect of the substance of the released videos that we have seen over the last week.
Reply to SR post on November 13, 2014 at 1:45 pm
>> SR said…
>>
>> In this case, the simplest explanation does seem to be that there
>> is more out there. It explains why informal reports such as yours
>> a few weeks ago, which have normally been pretty reliable, in this
>> case did not reflect of the substance of the released videos that
>> we have seen over the last week.
SR… I believe you may be ‘spot on’.
The people who were initially reporting what THEY saw in the footage might have been actually looking at ALL of it… and that’s where the ‘could be damaging to Marsh’ statements were coming from…
…but those people may have had no idea that USFS was going to REMOVE those very parts of the footage that related to Eric Marsh before ‘releasing’ the stuff.
It was actually ‘Robert the Second’ ( RTS ) who gave the first ‘heads up’ about the possibility of more Hulburd footage about to be released. RTS put the total at 42-43 minutes. He also said he heard about it from TWO firefighters who had been ‘engaged in Yarnell that day’.
I am in NO WAY suggesting that RTS should reveal his sources… but let’s just say that if they were any combination of ‘The Prescott Three’ ( Jason Clawson, Aaron Hulburd, KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell )… then it is more than likely all THREE of those men were fully aware of what was in ALL of Aaron’s video footage.
So perhaps they really were thinking ( and telling RTS ) that if everything THEY knew to be in the footage was released… that it would, in fact, be very damaging to Eric Marsh ( Such as perhaps some radio capture of the alleged argument Marsh had with Jesse Steed ).
Whoever was passing that ‘might be damaging to Marsh’ information on to RTS some weeks ago might be just as astonished as we are to see what was ACTUALLY released on Saturday.
In other words… they thought some stuff that THEY knew was in the material was going to be ‘in the public release’… and now it just isn’t.
All I can say is very, very close. The gag orders are keeping many of these real and down to earth Fire Fighters from speaking out or releasing what they have.
They want the facts out there as we do. The question is how many FS employees will end up possibly in court in Law Suits over Yarnell?
After the Humbling call I received yesterday I am dead set on finding out what is on this Video for the Families and for there children who deserve compensation for what occurred. I will not rest till I know the answers for them and there children even those who did not File. There are people out there that read this Please speak up for all the families who lost love ones
they deserve your support. Not your silence. They will live with this for ever.
At 9 Years old I remember my fathers Casket being moved from a train depot to a train we were switching to. Others will for get over time but families have memories that are imbedded for live pictures that never go away that reoccur in memories as vivid as a Picture.
They deserve to know the facts If you have them it is time to tell the FS to stop this crazy game. There is no self worth in hiding behind a government Gag Order. Let the cards fall where they fall and deal with it.
And really, I can understand what you have written before about the retributive consequences that can come down on the heads of people caught in these kinds of situations.
And how devastating that can be. That it’s often just not worth it.
But if anything, this whole clusterfuck (there I did it) has shown us just how much the USFS holds these employees and their families in contempt, and isn’t going to do a thing to uncomfortably protect the lives and well-being of their employees, their families, their friends and their loved ones.
This whole thing just shouts, from the USFS to their employees/families “Fuck You.”
And I’m including in my definition of USFS “employees” the Granite Mountain Hotshots, all legalities be damned.
They were Federal Interagency Hotshots, a Federal National Resource.
The only difference was who would have been paying their salary that day.
And even if there was an argument, and even if Eric and Granite Mountain made a fatal mistake, I still stand by my earlier assessment that if this fire had been properly analyzed and resourced by AZF, and if it, therefore, had been properly strategized and tactics-ized,
… instead of the debacle it was, threatening all kinds of lives…
…Eric Marsh and Granite Mountain wouldn’t have been left out there all day to eventually hang themselves, without anybody (but maybe Gary Cordes–and what good did THAT do?) even knowing where they were or what they were doing.
These guys are going to be in court anyway, if the families don’t settle, and it seems that they’re determined not to settle.
Is it possible also that there’s now another gag order of some kind on them as the lawsuits are being developed?
Also noted there is no reason for breaks in videos 263, 264 and 265 They should be continuous
as the video is capturing the hurried movement of equipment out of the fire. Each break has a different start than the stop pictures this was just before GM call for deployment.
Again why would the operator stop and start here as it should have been continuous????
Reply to Bob Powers post on November 13, 2014 at 1:45 pm
>> Bob Powers wrote…
>>
>> why would the operator stop and start here as it
>> should have been continuous????
Exactly. There is no ‘logical’ reason why he would have even been bothering to ‘stop and restart’ the camera during those hectic moments… especially since all the other footage proves that Hulburd’s normal habit was to simply ‘leave the camera running’ most of the time.
In the videos… following the deployment… KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell asks Hulburd when they heard the actual MAYDAY traffic. Hulburd wasn’t sure of the exact minute count since then but he then told Yowell “I recorded ALL of it”.
He then mentions that he ‘turned it off for maybe 2 or 3 minutes’ sometime AFTER the deployment sequence. That could have been the ‘break’ between when he set his Helmet Camera on the top of his truck right after the MAYDAY traffic… and then turned it on again 2-3 minutes later as he then was following Yowell west ( on foot ) on Shrine Road.
At no time does Hulburd SAY he ‘wasn’t sure I got it all’ or that he was ‘stopping and starting’ his camera prior to ( or during ) the MAYDAY calls.
He says the opposite. He SAYS “I recorded ALL of that”.
There also was absolutely no reason for him to turn his Camera OFF just at the same moment they were all saying HELLO to Frisby and Brown as they drove up from the Youth Camp in their Polaris Ranger… yet AZFS would seem to want us to believe that’s what he did instead of then going on to capture that 2 minute ‘intel report’ from Frisby and Brown that we know took place right then.
Right after Frisby and Brown pull up… and they say hello… and
Captain Trueheart Brown says
“Yea… we were back there tryin’ to stop idiots from burnin’ themselves up’…
…the video abruptly ENDS.
It doesn’t even show the little ‘jiggle’ that you would normally see when someone actually does reach up or over to turn off a ‘Helmet Cam’.
The video just CUTS OFF there… as if done with a piece of software.
And maybe the only reason he put the camera on the roof and turned it off for two or three minutes was to change the battery or the card..
Bingo.
He would have probably been running on the initial batteries all the way from the time he first arrived and ( like any good videophile would do ) immediately started recording. ( Todd Abel’s radio traffic from Ranger 58 during his second recon mission ).
Later on… he knew he had just captured ALL of the MAYDAY traffic, didn’t even bother to turn it off while he moved his truck… and right after they moved the trucks to that slightly safer spot… he knew a LOT more was about to come down in the next minutes/hours and he better have fresh batteries.
I have always thought he was just pausing at that moment and putting his helmet on top of his truck in order to fulfill KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell’s verbal request that they better get another handheld radio fired up so they wouldn’t miss any traffic…
…but now I would believe he was ALSO taking that moment to put a fresh set of batteries in his Helmet Camera there on the top of the truck.
Exactly.
If I was “the operator” in that kind of situation, there is no way I would bother with starting and stopping the camera, all things considered. There would be NO REASON to.
Capturing all that’s going on without hassling with buttons and stuff is the reason for using a headcam.
Which, therefore, means the file naming is mostly irrelevant.
Those file names are not the names of the original files, but they’re the names of the pieces of video someone at USFS chopped out of the original files.