"There's usually a chain of events — things that happened that shouldn't have happened" — that contribute to fatal wildfire incidents, said a retired wildfire investigator. Another firefighter, the former chief in Yarnell, called a recent state report on the death of the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots a "big cover-up." Read more»

Increasing evidence reveals that reasons far from supernatural contributed to the tragic deaths of 19 of the 20 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. Dispatch logs show the wildland firefighting crew should not have been deployed to fight the Yarnell Hill Fire. Read more» 2

Backing away from earlier claims of a fabricated story, officials said the Deputy State Forester has confirmed that he made the comments attributed to him by InvestigativeMEDIA in a July 30 article in which Payne was quoted as saying the leader of the Granite Mountain Hotshots made mistakes in the moments leading up to his death and the deaths of 18 members of his crew. Read more»

Eric Marsh, superintendent of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, violated safety protocols when he and 18 of his firefighters were killed in the Yarnell Hill Fire on June 30, a state Forestry official said. It appears that Marsh violated several basic wildfire rules including not knowing the location of the fire, not having a spotter observing it, and leading his crew through thick, unburned vegetation near a wildfire. Read more» 4