Firefighters die in the line of duty. Regrettably, even if it goes against the grain, I will say now that firefighters are always going to die in the line of duty. We honor their memory and try to develop systems to keep the living alive, and hopefully we will improve. We always talk about what we owe folks who die on the job, and that is what this article is about. We owe it to them to study the events that led to their death and to try to learn from them. You know, I don't like that. We owe it to ourselves to learn from the events that led to their injury or death. This past summer, on September 12, 2004, Firefighter Eva Schike of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) died at a wildfire. We owe it to her memory and ourselves to learn from the fire that took her life. This article is not intended to judge the actions of the firefighters involved or to assign any blame. God knows there is enough blaming going around—we don't need to do it to each other. With that in mind, let's take a look at the fire, the Tuolumne Fire (incident number CA-STF-2191), the strategy employed, and what options were available to the members of the crew as they developed and implemented their tactics.
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