The Esperanza Fire: Arson, Murder, and the Agony of Engine 57

by John N. Maclean

Overview

When a jury returns to a packed courtroom to announce its verdict in a capital murder case every noise, even a scraped chair or an opening door, resonates like a high-tension cable snap. Spectators stop rustling in their seats; prosecution and defense lawyers and the accused stiffen into attitudes of wariness; and the judge looks on owlishly. In that atmosphere of heightened expectation the jury entered a Riverside County Superior Court room in southern California to render a decision in the trial of Raymond Oyler, charged with murder for setting the Esperanza Fire of 2006, which killed a five man Forest Service engine crew sent to fight the blaze.

Today, wildland fire is everybody’s business, from the White House to the fireground. Wildfires have grown bigger, more intense, more destructive—and more expensive. Federal taxpayers, for example, footed most of the $16 million bill for fighting the Esperanza Fire. But the highest cost was the lives of the five-man crew of Engine 57, the first wildland engine crew ever to be wiped out by flames.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781619020719
Publisher:	Counterpoint Press
Publication date:	02/12/2013
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.42(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.05(d)

About the Author

John Norman Maclean is an award-winning author and journalist who has written about wildland fire for more than 15 years. Before turning to fire, Maclean was for 30 years a journalist with The Chicago Tribune , most of that time as diplomatic correspondent in Washington. His first book, Fire on the Mountain , was featured in two documentaries by Dateline NBC and the History Channel. He has also written Fire and Ashes and The Thirtymile Fire , both widely celebrated and critically acclaimed. He and his wife divide their time between Washington, DC and the West.

Read an Excerpt

Excerpt from The Esperanza Fire

When Courts at last saw the second flare-up, he threw off the hose packs and began a race for his life, up toward the road. Like Mitchell before him, Courts also took a backward glance – the need for a last look back seems to be embedded in the human psyche – and what he saw stopped him cold: the overweight and exhausted Miller was sitting on a rock taking a breather.
“Lets get out of here!” Courts yelled.
“I’m okay here,” Miller replied.
“The hell you are!” Courts shouted. “Let’s get out of here!”
Courts resumed his mad scramble up the slope. His legs burned and turned to rubber, his breath came in shallow gasps, his throat turned cotton-dry. He kept repeating to himself, as he later told fire investigators, “I’m going to make it! I’m going to make it no matter what.”
Twice more he glanced back and saw Miller, on his feet at last, struggling less than 20 feet behind him. The line between life and death came down to a few feet, a few seconds. Courts stumbled as he tried to lift a leg, nearly petrified by exhaustion, over the guardrail at the roadway. Never had anything so low seemed so insurmountably high. He managed to crawl over the guardrail, but his legs failed him and he collapsed in a heap. When he recovered enough to rise, he stumbled back to the guardrail and looked down for Miller. As Courts peered into the abyss, the fire roared “and a large mass of smoke, ashes, and heat” smacked him in the face. Barely able to breathe, he lurched across the highway to the partial protection of a cutbank and fell to the ground. He pulled his fire shirt over his head and put his face in the dirt, trying to suck life from the thin layer of oxygen at ground level. He stayed like that for long minutes, tucked against the cutbank, his lungs aching and his breath coming in snatches.
When the worst had passed, he got to his feet, walked back to the guardrail, and, eyes smarting, tried to see through the smoke. After a few seconds he made out a human form about 10 yards below him. It was Miller, flat on his back, with his clothes on fire.

Editorial Reviews

Should some readers harbor a fleeting desire to live in the woods, isolated from people and civic infrastructure, this book may cure them of that leave-it-all-behind fantasy. Maclean (Fire on the Mountain: The True Story of the South Canyon Fire) details a 2006 fire that killed five firefighters and led to the first murder conviction for a wildfire arsonist. Though the writing is clunky in places, the story of the fire is compelling and sad. The chapters detailing the landmark trial of the arsonist provide a glimpse into the jury's agonizing deliberations. The subsequent emotional upheaval for the surviving engine crews is reflected in the bureaucratic flood of conflicting reports, logs, and accounts of the fire. Maclean humanizes the firefighters and their families while providing technical information about both fires and fire departments. VERDICT For readers interested in firefighting and wildfires, this book will fascinate. Others may be left obsessively checking their smoke-alarm batteries.—Kate Sheehan, Middlebury, CT

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