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other becomes an “exception” to the culture. Finally, the analysis offers insights to crisis
communication theory for how audience members make sense of ritualistic organizational messages
over the long run.
Background on Three Tragedy Fires
Five federal agencies cooperate to control fires on their own and each other’s lands as part
of an “interagency” national wildland firefighting system. The U.S. Department of Agriculture
oversees the U.S. Forest Service, while the Department of the Interior runs the four five agencies
and their wildland fire operations: the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Boise National Interagency
Fire Coordination Center, for example, dispatches resources around the country, and the National
Wildfire Coordinating Group sets standards for safety training for all federal wildland firefighters.
Two tragedy fires are often raised in discussions about wildland firefighting safety in the
U.S.: the Mann Gulch disaster that killed thirteen elite “Smokejumper” firefighters in Montana in
1949, and the Storm King Mountain fire that killed fourteen elite Smokejumper, Hotshot, and
Helitack firefighters near Glenwood Springs, Colorado in 1994. A more recent fire that killed four
firefighters in a Washington canyon in 2001, the Thirtymile fire, is increasingly raised in
discussions about safety, and is often discussed in comparison to the other two. While the
Thirtymile did not involve the death of elites, it is often noted for its similarities to the other two
fires: firefighters were fighting a fire in a narrow canyon when they were suddenly overwhelmed by
a fire that they did not realized was as dangerous as it was.
Despite the fact that the fires are noted for their similarities, the legacies of the three fires are
emerging as very different from one another. The following chronology shows how in Forest
Service discourse, the 1949 Mann Gulch fire is remembered for the safety precautions it inspired.
The legacy of Mann Gulch is then compared to the legacy of the 1994 Storm King Mountain
tragedy. The chronology shows how controversies over the 1994 accident investigation initially
threatened the credibility of the Forest Service; however, by 1997 the Storm King Mountain fire’s
legacy was emerging as one of safety, similar to Mann Gulch. However, this emerging legacy was
disrupted in 2001 when four firefighters were killed in the Thirtymile fire in Washington state. The
Convention