Help Solve the Mystery of the Original “13 Situations that Shout ‘Watch Out!’”
from theysaid (2/11/10)

Ab, Northnight asked a question about the original 13 Watch Outs. I presented a poster with Bruce Vanderhorst and Kent Maxwell at last year's Wildland Fire Safety Summit in Phoenix where we tried to answer the same questions about the list's origin. Attached is an excerpt from our outline that discusses what we were able to find out. I'll also paste it below.

Thanks very much,
Jennifer Ziegler
Valparaiso University

Excerpt from a poster presented at the 10th Wildland Fire Safety Summit in Phoenix (2009):

Jennifer Ziegler, Valparaiso University
Bruce Vanderhorst, Riverside (CA) Fire Department
Kent Maxwell, Colorado Firecamp

How well do you know the history of the Watchout Situations? Take the following quiz:

True or False?

  1. The Watchout Situations were invented along with the Fire Orders in 1957.
  2. The Watchout Situations were originally created as a set of safety procedures.
  3. The Watchout Situations were originally 13 in number, to honor the number of fatalities at Mann Gulch in 1949.
  4. The Watchout Situations were originally called the “Situations that Shout ‘Watch Out!’”
  5. The Watchout Situations were expanded from 13 to 18 after the 1994 South Canyon Fire.
  6. Spin offs of the Watchout Situations include “WUI Watch Outs,” “Aviation Watch Outs,” and “Prescribed Fire Watch Outs.”

Answers:

  1. False. The 1957 Task Force report created only the 10 Standard Firefighting Orders.
  2. False. Early fireline notebooks categorized “Watch Outs” under “suppression techniques.” (The Fire Orders were always categorized under “safety.”)
  3. Believed False. No evidence has been found linking this list with that event. It is more plausible that they stemmed from a list of 13 items that was said to have contributed to the Loop Fire tragedy in 1966 (see below).
  4. True!
  5. False. There were already 18 at the time of the South Canyon Fire, and they are cited in the accident investigation report. The Watchouts were expanded from 13 to 18 by NWCG in 1987 (see Ziegler, 2008).
  6. True!

OUR SEARCH FOR THE ORIGIN OF THE WATCHOUT SITUATIONS:

  1. We began this project when we learned that some younger firefighters were developing misconceptions about the 18 Watchout Situations, as evidenced by our “True / False” quiz, namely:
    1. They were developed in 1957 along with the Fire Orders.
    2. There were originally 13 in recognition of the number of fatalities at Mann Gulch.
    3. They were expanded to 18 after the South Canyon Fire in 1994.
    4. They have always been paired with the 10 Fire Orders as tactical safety standards.

ALL FALSE!

  1. Although the history of the Fire Orders is well documented, the history of the original Watchout Situations is less well known. Beginning with the premise that they had been developed after some major event, we narrowed it down to the 1966 Loop Fire (CA) based on the following evidence:

    a. The 1966 Loop Fire accident report was the genesis for the Downhill Line Construction Checklist. And, the first of the original 13 Situations that Shout “Watch Out” is “YOU are building a line downhill toward a fire.”
    b. In addition to mentioning the Downhill Checklist, the Loop Fire accident report (and subsequent documents) mentions the Fire Orders but nothing about any Watch Out Situations, which suggests they had not been invented yet.
    c. Similarly, a 1965 “programmed [self study] text” for safety only mentions the Fire Orders.
    d. A safety task force that was convened in 1967 to update the trend analysis started by the 1957 task force found that the Loop fire had “13” contributory items in common with past fires. There were originally 13 Situations that Shout “Watch Out”
    e. The Situations that Shout “Watch Out” were included in a 1968 training guide for interregional crews that predated the Hot Shots.
     
  2. We also noticed that most of the early artifacts of Situations that Shout “Watch Out” were dated in the early to mid 1970s:
    a. They appeared on an ICS form from the 1971 Romero Fire in Los Padres NF.
    b. They were included in a 1976 NWCG Fire Behavior course
    c. They were included in safety instruction booklets in 1978 (after Carl Wilson developed the Common Denominators of Tragedy Fires in 1977) and 1992.
    d. In their effort to rework the 10 & 18, Braun et al (2001) studied a list of Watch Outs that they claimed was “circa 1975.”

     
  3. However, we also became aware of earlier published versions of the 13 Situations that Shout “Watch Out” that predated the 1966 Loop Fire (thanks to Jim Cook and Mark Linane for tracking these down):
    a. A 1960 R5 Fireline notebook
    b. A 1961 R5 Fireline notebook (may not be original pages, though)
    c. A 1962 R4 Fireline notebook
    d. A 1964 R4 Firefighting Overhead notebook
    e. A 1964 R5 Fireline notebook
    f. A table in the 2004 refresher that dates the Watch Outs to “1958-1959” (n.b.: the refresher provides no source documentation and some dates in the same table are inaccurate).
     
  4. We also reasoned that:
    a. The Watchouts may not have been mentioned in the Loop Fire report because the early 1960s documents mentioned above did not categorize them under “safety.”
    b. Back then, the 13 Situations that Shout “Watch Out” were included in “suppression techniques.”
    c. Additionally, firefighters we polled who began their careers in the mid 1950s to early 1960s stated that the 13 Watch Out Situations were developed sometime between 1958 and 1962.
     
  5. So, our current theory is that the original 13 Situations that Shout Watch Out emerged first in the field and, perhaps more importantly, emerged for the sake of fire overhead, and not necessarily for fireline personnel. Then, they eventually migrated to NWCG policy in the 1970s.
    a. Note that this is unlike the Fire Orders which began as top-down policy (1957).
    b. But, this is also unlike LCES which emerged in the field but as a tactical safety guideline for firefighters on the fireline.

     
  6. Incidentally, we do know why and when they were expanded from 13 to 18: when NWCG developed the Standards for Survival Course in 1987 (see Ziegler whitepaper at http://blogs.valpo.edu/jziegler/).
    a. They were also shifted from S-190 Fire Behavior to S-130 Firefighter I at that time.
    b. We also know why the 18th Watch Out Situation is “feel like taking a nap near the fireline.” (Kent knows the answer to that one.)
     
  7. We would like to know when YOU originally learned the Watchout Situations. Please email us at Jzieglervalpo@gmail.com, with the year, agency, and city and state, and please include your current contact information so we can follow up.
     
  8. Those asking specifically about the change from 13 to 18 might be interested in reading How the “13 Situations that Shout ‘Watch Out’” Became the “18 Watchout Situations.”