Subject: Local News: Sunday, July 29, 2001

One man's notes from inside the inferno.
Where Four Firefighters Gave there lives in the line of duty
Editors note: Matthew Rutman, 26, was working as a swamper, clearing
debris from a fire break, when the Thirty Mile blaze exploded.
He kept a short diary as the fire raced toward him,
and later wrote more fully about the event.
This is his story.

new
There is Beauty in Death & Destruction
"Click to see Full Size Photo"

My name is Matthew Rutman, I'm a firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service,
and I was in the Thirty Mile Fire that took the lives of four firefighter
brothers and sisters. I was trapped with 13 fellow firefighters and two
citizens on a road that dead-ended into a trailhead when what is known as a
"blowout" occurred.
I deployed my fire shelter, breathed the superheated air and gases, heard
screaming, jumped into the creek and barely survived thefire and its aftermath.
I write this to whoever will listen. I write this because I am angry, sad,
confused ? and want with all my heart to believe that those four firefighters
did not die for no reason. I want people to understand what firefighters all
over the country are exposed to every season.
One reason I believe I am alive today is because I wrote down what was
happening, what I was feeling up to the minute we deployed our shelters. I
did not leave the road. I thought about it. I watched others wander into the
rocky area, but I did not go.
I am alive today only because I stayed on the road. I stayed with my words.
Rutman scrawled the following in a small notebook in the moments before the
fire overtook him. It is published as written, without editing.

"Blackened pine and fir needles are falling on our heads. We've been cut off
from our escape road, backed into a dead-end road (needles and ash are
bouncing off my shirt, off this notebook).
The roar of the fire is getting louder, louder. The column twisting, several
fires joined, it sounds like a tidal wave is coming our way. The sun is a
bloody red, the smoke dark and high. The falling nettles sound like hail on a
cold Northwest morning. The wind rips through the canyon, I watch the top
of trees swaying violently from the high winds that the fire is creating.
It's changing and twisting all around us. The beach and the creek are our last
stand; we may be jumping in soon.
I hear a chopper, or is that just the roar of the fire rapidly coming upon us
It's changing, rolling, screaming!!
I feel the heat, I smell the smoke. The sun is free of the tall column, sending
dusty rays our way through the haze. Its close now, its close now!!!
Rolling right by us now, just across the little creek, the creek that may end
up saving our lives.
Here it comes. Again the sun is covered, bright orange, then yellow, then red.
There is a strange calm, coolness in the air amongst the crew. For the first
time, we can see the flames. Its licking, its rolling, its alive, its screaming at us!!!
There's a spot fire in the rock scree, just above us. And now it's gray, and here it
comes again.
It's snowing fire. A snowstorm of burning red embers is falling on us. I brush
red-hot embers from the back of my neck and hair. The noise and wind are
so intense I can hear nothing from the crew.
I unfold my shelter without thinking, and within seconds find myself curled in
the fetal position, thinking, `Oh my God, how did this happen?'
I began to hyperventilate, sucked in some hot air, felt like I was going to die,
confronted death, argued with it over my life, heard screaming. I fought the
urge to jump out of my shelter, and felt the winds trying to rip it off me.
Then I felt as if I were being pelted by a thousand snowballs as a barrage of
embers, broken tree branches and ash pelted the shelter. It came in several
intense waves and at one point I thought surely I would be dead before this
was all over. I thought about my family and friends and got lost momentarily
in desperation.
Then I got out my Leatherman, started digging a hole and focused on getting
as low to the ground as possible to suck the cool air from the hole.
This kept me focused until I heard the call to run for the creek. I stumbled
with my shelter through the smoke and heat, jumped over a flaming log, and
met my crew in the cold icy waters of the Chewuch River. We redeployed
our shelters and spent the next 30 minutes up to our neck in those waters,
not sure of what was happening all about us. I shared my tent with a fellow
firefighter, and we spent most of the time embraced, assuring each other that
we would survive this.
Eventually we were told to get onto the beach, where we had about one minute to
feel safe. Suddenly, the loud boom of tires exploding met us, and we gazed at
the civilians' truck, which was engulfed in flames. The tires were exploding one
by one. We all thought the truck was going to explode into us. We heard the
breaking of a tree and watched half of a burning tree break and fall on top of
the shelters we had just been deployed in.
We backed into the waters of the creek, expecting the rest of the flaming
tree to fall on us, and the truck to explode into us at any moment. Just when
we thought the shit was really going to hit the fan, a truck with several
firefighters showed up and yelled at us to get into the van, and get the hell
out of there. They had logged out the road, and cleared a safe evacuation for us."
Rutman's account ends there. He has returned to work, stationed at Lake Wenatchee,
where his primary assignment is on an engine crew.
He offers this epilogue.
"The four firefighters we left out there will forever be a part of us. I tell this
story so the public can understand and empathize, and so my fellow firefighters can
better understand what they may have to confront. I plan on returning to my duties
and fighting for more safety training so others don't meet the same fate as Karen,
Jessica, Tom and Devin."

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