Incident Name: Canyon or Canyon Inn Fire
Date: August 24, 1968
Personnel: 8 lives lost
Age: most were teenagers
Agency/Organization: Los Angeles County Fire Department
Position: firefighters
Summary:
George Thomas, age 36, Fireman Specialist of Crew 4-4
Duane Battle, age 17, Crewman Crew 4-4
Earl Walzer, Crewman Crew 4-4
William Rodriguez, Crewman Crew 4-4
Arthur Mendible, Crewman Crew 4-4
Robert Rivera, Crewman Crew 4-4
Gregory Banks, Crewman Crew 4-4
Larry Carlin, Crewman Crew 4-4
On 8/23/68 the “Canyon Inn Fire” started above Glendora, CA. On 8/24 members of Los Angeles County Fire Department Crew 4-4 were burned over. Seven juvenile crewmen and a Fireman Specialist lost their lives. Before the fire was over it burned 19,100 acres. As a result of the loss of juvenile firefighter lives in this fire and the Hacienda Heights Fire, the practice of using juvenile probationers to fight fire was re-evaluated and stopped. The Downhill Indirect Checklist was another result of this fire.
Maps
Incident Location
{mosmap lat=’34.1527879’|lon=’-117.881605’|marker=’0’|text=’Accident Location’}
Canyon or Canyon Inn Fire perimeter
Topo Map location of Canyon Fire fatality site (Section 24) relative to Angeles NF Boundary; location is the tiny red dot below the “heel” and about 1/2 mile outside the forest
Reports, Documentation, Lessons Learned
- Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station: Fire Weather and Fire Behavior at the 1968 Canyon Fire Countryman et al. (2,928 K pdf)
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Wildlandfire.com Links:
- Hotlist discussion from Smokey307: CA-ANF-Colby (1/18/2014) and Followup
Media Articles and Reports.
Photos, Videos, & Tributes
Contributors to this article: Rick Messier, Gerald Meehan, Larry Tucker, LAC, RJM
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