DESIGNER

Jackson Cook

PROFILE/DESCRIPTION

Article text courtesy of nytimes.com

Headline: Blazes that firefighters thought had died but then later came roaring back to life have become increasingly common, heightening scrutiny of how first-responders put out wildfires.

Paragraphs: In October 1991, a grass fire was reported in Northern California near the Caldecott Tunnel on a slope in the Berkeley Hills. The fire was small, but five years of drought had primed the eucalyptus and Monterey pines for the blaze. It was nighttime before firefighters finished checking for hot spots and counted themselves lucky it had not been windier.

By noon the next day, that luck had run out.

As a Diablo wind rose, fallen embers that had seemed dead the previous evening suddenly came alive. Mop-up crews who had come back to make one last check and retrieve their fire hoses watched in astonishment as flaming pine needles went flying and trees exploded into one of the deadliest wildfires ever in California.