Updated at 3:56 pm on Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026.
At 3:19 p.m. on June 27, Rifle Helitack squad leader Emily Barker commanded four other firefighters on her team battling a wildfire in Mesa County to “pull shelters.” Two-and-a-half hours later, after enduring temperatures ranging from 400 to 1,200 degrees, two of those firefighters would be airlifted from the site.
A newly released report on the hours leading up to, and following Barker’s command, highlights chaotic firefighting response that struggled with extreme fire weather, strained communication systems and limited air support as a series of fires in Western Colorado burned into each other.
The Knowles fire entrapment killed Emily Barker, Sydney Watson, and Nick Hutcherson on June 27. A fourth firefighter, Nathan Matthews, died on July 24 after being hospitalized. Another firefighter was also injured and hospitalized that day.
The just-released report by the Department of the Interior, which spans more than 100 pages, explores issues pertaining to communication and equipment during the response to the fire. The analysis found the firefighters were attempting to contain two smaller fires in a rugged and remote part of Mesa County when a third fire, the Snyder fire, overtook them.
“From approximately 1236 until 1519, the fire ran just under 7 ½ miles over complex broken mesa and canyon topography, which was described as ‘shocking’ and ‘unfathomable’ by interviewees,” the report notes.
Investigators highlighted aging radio infrastructure and unreliable coverage that hampered communications; a dispatch center reliant largely on trainees; difficulty communicating the location of firefighters on the ground and windy conditions that limited air support during the time period when the team was overrun by fire.
Pilots interviewed for the report told investigators that the conditions were “by far the roughest flying conditions of my career” and “I’ve never fought fire in that kind of wind before.”
“Between the two pilots on Helicopter B, they had a combined five combat tours overseas flying the UH-60 helicopter (military version of the S-70), and thousands of hours of flight time. They agreed that this mission was the most difficult flying they had ever done,” the report details.
Collectively, the investigation does not highlight any one flaw that contributed to the deaths of the wildland firefighters.
“No single decision or system failure fully explains the outcome. Instead, the events reveal the cumulative effects of known limitations operating under extraordinary tempo and conditions,” the report notes.
It is unclear if any steps have been taken at this point to address the shortcomings listed in the report, such as replacing the aging communications systems and evaluating air support protocols moving forward.
Air support challenges
From 2:30 p.m. — about 45 minutes before the team deployed shelters — to 4:30 p.m., the area where the firefighters died was without “air attack coverage” according to the report.
That’s because when one air team returned to the Grand Junction airport to refuel at 2:30 p.m., a relief team was unable to take off due to high crosswinds. During this period, the helitack team and the helicopter tending to them (referred to in the report as Helicopter A) were unaware they had no support.
“Ground firefighters, helitack leadership, and Helicopter A pilot unknowingly operated under the false mental model that air attack was actively monitoring the main fire and would warn them if it posed an imminent threat,” the report stated.
At the same time, a radio problem meant that updates intended to communicate the location of the crew on the ground to air support were instead going to an air team fighting another fire 30 miles away.
According to the report, the helicopter pilot was among the first to determine that the conditions warranted an immediate extraction. On a brief stop to refuel, a supervisor asked the pilot if they felt now was the time for an evacuation.
“Without hesitation, Pilot 1 said yes, we should get them right now,” the report said.
The helicopter added fuel and departed 8 minutes before the team would deploy fire shelters with their transmission once again going to the wrong air attack team 30 miles away. When the firefighters on the ground received news that they were to be picked up, they made plans to head to the landing site.
“Emily called Supt 1 on her cell … at the end of their short conversation she said, “Oh, we got a spot fire. I gotta go,” the report details.
Large portions of the investigation are sourced from interviews with the surviving firefighters, referred to in the report as “Firefighter 5.”
According to their account, once the team made the decision to evacuate, smoke was so thick they needed GPS to find the location where they’d been dropped off. The five firefighters found their way to the landing spot but it became clear the helicopter could not land.
“That’s it. We gotta pull shelters,” Firefighter 5 recalls Barker saying.
The surviving firefighter told investigators he struggled to open his shelter, though he was eventually able to deploy and use it. In the period when he was fighting with the system, Barker offered to help.
“I thought she was talking about radios, but she was offering me her shelter,” the surviving firefighter told investigators.
The shelters, which resemble oblong tubes similar to single-person backpacking sleeping tents, are designed to protect firefighters if they are overtaken. From the time shelters were used to when a helicopter could land, 2.5 hours elapsed.
Firefighter 5 recalled being trapped in his shelter during a particularly intense period of heat that lasted nearly an hour in which the sides of the shelter burned their forearms and the heat was unbearable.
“Firefighter 5 estimated they were about 10 steps from the gear pile and could hear the small bottles of chainsaw fuel exploding,” the report notes.
Analysis after the burn showed that temperatures around the shelters reached as high as 1,200 degrees, with other areas near the shelter showing temperatures of 400 to 600 degrees.
The surviving firefighter and Matthews were evacuated once another helicopter was finally able to land. The three other firefighters were dead. As information about the shelter deployment and attempts to land were being coordinated, news began to filter out to others working the fire. One helicopter member assigned to the area recalled passing the news of a fire shelter deployment along to a smokejumper.
“At that point, I started bawling … I hugged the smokejumper and we just sat by these rocks for a long time, just listening to the broken traffic.”
This story is developing and has been updated to include additional details from the investigative report.
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