This certainly provides insight into the deaths of 27 wildland firefighters who died disregarding orders to drop their heavy tools (so they could outrun a wildfire):

"Drop Your Tools: An Allegory for Organizational Studies" by Karl Weick at http://www19.homepage.villanova.edu/gregory.gull/MBA8510.htm...

Wildland operations are a completely different skill set from structural firefighting. That is why there is a separate certification (red card).

While I never was red card certified, our small town department in Colorado was asked during the occasional summer to provide structural support (or wildland if certified) for some of the mountain towns (lodgepole pine beetle kill). This freed up the wildland folks to do their thing.

We got enough training to learn that basically the only tool that should be carried when speed is of the essence is your portable shelter. Granted it looks like out training came a decade after the above fire, so lessons learned are being disseminated.

Sad to hear about the 27 brother and sisters who lost their lives on the line.

Regarding admired fire departments, Phoenix fire seemed to show up a lot in our trainings as a source that really focused on data driven strategy and tactics.

(10 year retired volunteer Firefighter)

Reminds me of the speech from The Edge. "Most people in the wilderness die of shame ... instead of thinking".

That said, all fatal fire reports have one thing in common. All the people who read them think "I have no clue what I would have done if that was me".

[1] As opposed to reading success stories on HN where I think "I could do that easily.." or "luck played a large role in that success".