“We had firefighters deploy those blankets ehr. they were overtaken by the storm king fire in Colorado. “
The blankets do work and have saved many lives:
Three I know of just yesterday:
This fire was 80 acres Friday afternoon, but blew up to over 11,000 in yesterdays winds and 94 F temps. Lots of homes lost.
Years ago a guy at our church had a son that was a wildfire fighter. His son was able to deploy his blanket properly (mostly). The others in his group did not.
He survived with burns to both of his hands. The rest of the crew died. He spent a lot of time in the hospital recovering from those burns. I’m not sure he ever recovered from being the only one that made it out alive.
I’m glad they have saved some. They certainly did t work in the Colorado fire.
I served in the forest service 1978-1982, first shovel on Vista Grande Hot Shots , Keenwild engine 56, Keenwild Helitack
We did a LOT of risky hotline in those days, I heard that today they just stand off and let it burn. When the SHTF the best plan is to escape.
I saw "Only The Brave" and was tempted to scream at the screen, according to the movie, the crew leader made every mistake he could make to get the crew killed, namely making a frontal assault in an afternoon run, instead of establing and anchor point, flanking the head and having at least two escape routes and have the crew call them out loud every few minutes , "escape route is XXX pass it on " ( back down the line or in to the burn) the baked potato wrapper was never an option to any of us