Original subtitles

[siren blaring]

Police officer: I need traffic stopped, southbound 10.

Steve pyne: Fire has been on earth as long

As plants have been on land.

Police officer: Follow me!

Follow me!

Steve pyne: But we get a big shift when a species arrives

Who can start fire at will.

Police officer: Go, go, go, go!

Go south!

Steve pyne: I think humans have been changing

The earth for a long time.

Police officer: Come down this way!

Come down this way!

Steve pyne: We've lost the ability

To understand how fire works and how it

Can be used to our advantage.

Police officer: [indistinct] the fire has jumped the road.

This is bad.

Steve pyne: We've mismanaged fire.

Now we get fires that are really off the scale,

Shouldn't be here, shouldn't be behaving in this way.

And now we're left with these monsters.

And it is remaking the world.

Police officer: (voice breaking) it's all bad up here, brother.

It's all bad.

Oh, my god.

[thunder crackling]

Welcome to violent earth.

I'm liev schreiber.

Scientists say wildfires are more

Frequent and burning bigger.

In the past, a 50,000 or 60,000 acre fire was considered big.

These days, firefighters are often dealing with

Fires well above 100,000 acres.

According to government statistics, during the 1990s,

An average of 3 million acres a year

Burned in the united states.

Since 2000, that number has more than doubled.

In 2020 alone, over 10 million acres were consumed.

The experts say 85% to 90% of wildfires

Are caused by human activity.

Tonight, violent earth takes a look at this roaring force

Of nature, starting with the mega fire

That burned through paradise, california, in 2018.

[police radio chatter]

Kory honea: The camp fire was the deadliest

And most destructive fire in california's history.

[shouting]

John messina: It was almost 200 days

Since we had received any rainfall

In that particular area.

The wind was very dry and blowing

In gusts of 70 miles an hour.

Kory honea: The town of paradise at the time of the camp

Fire was about 26,000 people.

Alexander maranghides: A town built in the forest.

There was a lot of vegetation, topography, wind, drought.

All these things contributed to make

This event unfold very rapidly.

Police officer: Go double lanes!

Go double lanes!

And very catastrophically.

Kory honea: The fire was caused by a downed

Electrical transmission line.

Camp creek road was the nearest

Named road to the ignition.

And that's why this is the camp fire.

Tamra fisher: Oh, this is horrible.

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, my gosh.

These poor people.

I've lived in paradise since 1979.

I prepared for years for this exact moment.

I knew fire was--

Was bad.

I've always respected it.

Tamra is my little sister.

She's raw, and she's funny.

This, too, could be you.

Tamra was not as concerned about the wildfires as I was.

And that morning, I got out of there pretty fast.

Tamra texted me and asked me what was happening.

And I said, "get out, t. Get out.

Paradise is going to burn down."

But possibly, the cell towers were

Starting to burn in that area.

I don't believe she got my text.

Tamra fisher: Can we please get out of here?

Larry laczko: Tamra had her three dogs in the car with her.

Tamra fisher: It's 9 o'clock in the morning.

Larry laczko: She was recording the events on her cell phone.

Tamra fisher: I'm really scared.

And I don't got that much gas!

She was stressed that she was not making progress

Getting away from the fire.

Tamra fisher: Come on!

Just go!

I'm so scared!

[honking horn]

Todd abel: These fires, it's very, very intense heat.

Ignite a tree without flame touching it.

All at once, the tree lights up sort of like a roman candle.

Paul hessburg: And when a wildfire is really moving fast,

It can burn five to 10 football fields in a second.

It's millions of hot embers that can find so

Many places to ignite a fire.

Sometimes the winds are so strong that they

Are tossed up to five miles.

Brad elder: The drier it is outside,

The probability of that ember is going to stay lit

And the fuel that it lands in is approaching 100%.

[police radio chatter]

Paul hessburg: Paradise, california,

Burned from an ember attack from a plume miles

Away from paradise.

Kory honea: This is, like, 9 o'clock in the morning,

And it's pitch black.

Given the smoke, it almost appeared

As though it was the middle of the night and it was snowing.

Ash and embers began to rain down.

John messina: The fire was moving

At a football field per second.

And the way it did that, of course,

Was by jumping ahead and starting these fires.

They would immediately take hold

And rapidly grow into a 100-acre, 200-acre spot fire.

That was happening all through town.

Alexander maranghides: That resulted in the town

Starting to burn all at once.

30,000 people were trying to be evacuated

While being overran by fire.

Police officer: Go forward and turn around.

Turn around and go north.

Turn around and go north.

[bleep] this is bad.

Larry laczko: A firefighter told tamra to follow

Him down pearson road.

Cindy christensen: Tamra was behind them.

But the traffic stopped.

Tamra fisher: No!

[honking horn]

Larry laczko: Everything around her was burning.

Tamra fisher: Look at that.

Cars on the side burning.

And nobody was moving.

Tamra fisher: Go!

It's so hot.

Todd abel: These fires, they can be well over 2,000 degrees.

They melt metal.

They melt cars.

And you can hear her dogs panting in the back.

[dogs whimpering]

Tamra fisher: Ugh!

And her despair.

Tamra fisher: What did I do?

Come on!

Paul hessburg: The increase in wildfires in the current

21st century is exponential.

California is seeing its worst year ever for wildfires.

Canada in general right now for this fire season.

33.8 million acres have already burned.

Brad elder: And we generally think

Of fire as bad because most wildfires are dangerous.

Mark finney: But it's very important

To try to understand really the essential role

That fire has in our ecosystems and the beneficial role.

Steve pyne: Fire is not some kind of alien visitation

On the landscape.

Fire has been on earth as long as plants have been on land.

We can go back 420 million years and find fossil charcoal.

These landscapes have, in a sense, co-evolved with fire.

Kristen honig: Fires are good for the planet.

They have lots of roles in ecosystem health.

Brad elder: There's so many different plants

And animals that respond positively to fires.

Paul hessburg: The varied habitats

Come from the byproducts of a wildfire.

The forests of western north america,

Including the western united states, need fire.

They evolved with fire.

What is new is the frequency of very large fires is increasing.

Steve pyne: It kills people, threatens properties and towns.

They're essentially uncontrollable at scale.

Paul hessburg: Wildfires are burning

At the rate of 7 to 10 million acres of the us every year.

This is unprecedented.

It's getting worse.

Paul hessburg: We expect double to triple the amount of area

Burned between now and 2050.

Well, how did that happen?

[music playing]

[siren blaring, police radio chatter]

Karen davis: I was a registered nurse at feather

River hospital in paradise.

We received a code black--

Get patients out now.

And the flames were unbelievable that came up the canyon.

My best friend, nichole, was also a nurse

At feather river hospital.

We worked together.

Karen davis: Ambulances were not able to get to us.

Patients had to be put in employee vehicles.

Dispatcher: 10-4, chief, go ahead.

Karen davis: After we got all the patients in vehicles,

Nichole and I left following each other.

Steve pyne: 1910 was really the founding

Year for the american way of firefighting.

Reporter: The big blowup.

A wild surging firestorm started near elk city, idaho.

Paul hessburg: The 1910 big burn.

It burned 3 million acres across three states,

Killed 87 people, mostly firefighters.

And our awareness and our whole consciousness about fire

Pivoted in that moment.

Reporter: This is a picture of tragedy,

A tragedy that happens year after year

In our great american forest areas--

Fire.

Fire became public enemy number one.

And wildfires were to be put out at all cost.

Steve pyne: And at that point, we almost

Militarized firefighting.

Kyle dickman: We were really good at it.

Firefighters could put out 99% of fires

Before they grew bigger than an acre.

Paul hessburg: And from about 1935 to about 1985,

You see not much fire burning.

And it made our fire suppression look great.

Steve pyne: And that was a very poor judgment.

Well, they completely misjudged the character

Of the overall fire scene.

Paul hessburg: What's happened since the exclusion of fire

Is forests have gotten denser.

The forests of today look nothing

Like they did in the 1930s.

There are 10 times even more trees than that on the landscape

Of the historical condition.

And they will burn bigger and they'll burn hotter

Than they burned historically.

And what we didn't know in those days

And we've learned later through research is,

Fire is medicine on the landscape,

And it's how we can live safely.

And here's why that's so critical.

It was the frequency of the small- and medium-sized fires

That blocked the flow of very large fires.

You might burn out a patch in a forest,

But the bulk of the force is still standing there.

Mark finney: Fires that just burn underneath the trees,

Maybe some grass, maybe some downed logs.

Paul hessburg: So there's power in the patchwork

To regulate how big and how severe the fires got.

So fires would be rarely very large.

So after a century and a half without fire,

Fuels have built up over many large areas

To powder keg conditions.

But the worst part of it is, we're actually building homes

In the middle of this mess.

And so when we get a large fire, houses and forests

Literally go up in smoke.

And as the climate continues to turn up the heat

And dry out the landscape, what we

See after '85 is that area burned increases exponentially.

And it continues to increase today.

Fires like paradise, the camp fire.

Alexander maranghides: The town of paradise

Had not seen any fire history in the past 100-plus years.

Paul hessburg: They're setting new records for area burned

And structures that are burned.

And it's because the fires are literally uncontrollable.

Police officer: I copy that.

[honking horn]

Tamra fisher: I'm scared!

Cindy christensen: Tamra was beating on her horn,

Screaming to go, go, go, go.

Tamra fisher: Come on!

Cindy christensen: Nothing was moving.

Larry laczko: Tamra was driving a yellow volkswagen beetle.

Somebody shot a video from behind her

Showing her out of her volkswagen.

That firestorm came roaring through.

It was unreal.

Her car was on fire.

She was screaming for help.

Tamra fisher: Help!

Cindy christensen: Tamra was on pearson road.

Alexander maranghides: Pearson is one of the top five worst

Situations in all of camp fire.

The fire overtakes evacuating, gridlocked traffic.

Everything is on fire all at once.

Vehicles start catching on fire.

40 abandoned vehicles in that 6/10 of a mile.

And this created a very, very dangerous situation.

Nichole's car was trapped with me right on pearson road.

Nichole jolly: That tree could come down on me at any moment.

This is ridiculous.

And I'm stuck.

[bleep]

Tamra fisher: Oh, my god.

It's everywhere.

In tamra's video, you could see my white truck,

And you can see nichole's silver sedan.

People just sitting there.

Nothing was moving.

Tamra fisher: This is a [bleep] nightmare.

Just come on!

Oh, my god.

Karen davis: All of a sudden, I could feel my truck drop,

Which meant my tires were burning.

And right in the middle of that, I heard a knock on the window.

Nichole got out of her car because her car

Had caught on fire.

She tried to open the door, but the handles

Were gone from the outside.

They had melted away.

So she ran off.

I had no idea where she was.

[music playing]

Greater than 100,000 acres,

We term it a "mega fire."

Some of the biggest fires are a million acres or more.

Big, hot fires create their own weather.

Suddenly, this really white cloud start developing.

It was being made by the moisture being driven

Off by the fire down below.

And in the most extreme cases, they have lightning,

And they have rain.

They have very strong downdrafts that

Can create very, very strong winds right down at the surface.

Paul hessburg: Sometimes wildfires are so loud,

Associated with the wind and weather

That the fire is creating, it sounds

Like a 747 flying overhead.

Tornadoes, they call them "firenadoes,"

Will happen as a consequence of these

Phenomenal surface wind speeds.

Woman: Oh, my--

They move incredibly fast when they get up and go.

And they're really quite horrific.

Mark finney: Wildfires ignite from lots of different sources.

Steve pyne: Before humans were around,

This was almost always lightning.

Volcanic activity can start fires.

That's a natural ignition, we often call it.

Steve pyne: Humans probably account

For 90% of the ignition in the united states

And probably around the world.

Reporter: Investigators say a wildfire

Near yosemite national park was started

By an unattended campfire.

Reporter: Power lines were blamed for starting

10 fires this year.

Violent and explosive wildfires in hawaii

Fueled by strong winds from a hurricane 800 miles away.

Reporter: Maui locals have never seen anything like the firestorm

That obliterated lahaina.

Winds of up to 80 miles an hour.

Erin burnett: Tee dang was on vacation with her family.

The flames so dangerously close that they

Were forced to jump into the ocean to save themselves.

Tee dang: It was just like a hot oven fire flaming,

Blowing at us.

And then we started just huddling in and trying

To keep our family tight so we won't get burned from the fire

And then get washed away from the water.

Reporter: The lahaina fire is now the deadliest fire in the us

In more than a century.

Reporter: This will rank as one of the worst

Disasters in american history.

It's as bad as paradise, california, the deadliest

Fire from a few years back.

Larry laczko: That morning, when I turned on pearson road,

I hit gridlock.

We were just inching along when I

Came upon tamra and her burning vw beetle

On the side of the road.

She just opened her door.

I heard tamra say, "I need help putting out this fire."

I told her, "you need to get into my truck."

But she seemed like she wanted to stay with the car.

I know she had some treasured belongings.

But she had to get away from that.

Tamra fisher: I'm sorry, lucky.

I'm crying.

Karen davis: Nichole got out of her car

Because her car was on fire.

She knocked on my window.

And she tried to open the door, but couldn't.

So she ran off.

I was dazed from the smoke.

And I didn't know where she went.

Everybody was in a panic, just trying to survive.

Larry laczko: I did witness people running

To a cal fire fire engine.

We couldn't believe that they were outside.

The temperature inside the engine at that point

Was probably around 150, 160 degrees.

At some point, the outside of the engine

Probably took temperatures of 600 degrees.

We started pulling people into the engine, as many as we could.

But we just didn't have any more room.

Larry laczko: We were still trying to inch along.

Tamra fisher: [indistinct speech]

[crying]

And suddenly, out of the darkness

Came the headlights of a bulldozer driven by a cal fire

Hero, pushing burning vehicles off the side of the road

Beside us.

John jessen: Joe kennedy, he was able to get those cars out

Of our way and be able to open up that road

And give us a means of escape.

Alexander maranghides: The dozer comes in, helps clear the area,

And enables the first responders to escort

The convoy out of harm's way.

Karen davis: That eventually saved our lives.

I did wonder what happened to nichole.

I remember it was so hot, my eyes and my throat were burning.

I ran up the road.

And I'm closing my eyes because you can't see anything.

And I touched the back of this fire engine.

The firefighters looked at me, and they were like, oh my gosh.

Karen davis: And I later learned nichole was one of the people

That ran into the fire engine.

Nichole jolly: The firefighters absolutely saved our lives.

I waited all day for tamra.

I didn't hear anything.

I was so scared.

If I wouldn't have had my dogs, I probably

Would have ran on foot.

Having larry open the truck door and tell me to get in and then

Said, "bring the dogs," it was like a knight in shining armor.

I got a text from somebody I didn't know,

This gentleman, larry.

I found out that he had saved tamra.

I feel that I was in the wrong place at the right time.

Tamra fisher: Oh, my god.

Karen davis: And when we finally did get through,

It was like an apocalypse.

Tamra fisher: Oh, my gosh.

It's like you're seeing this destruction that you

Only see in, like, movies.

It's gone.

Larry laczko: It's gone.

Tamra fisher: It's gone.

Look, that house is gone.

Larry laczko: Yep.

Tamra fisher: And that house is gone.

And to see that devastation, it was surreal.

Yeah, my sister's just right up here.

It's all gone.

Cindy christensen: Our neighborhood, our house,

There was nothing left.

Nothing.

It was decimated.

We lost everything, except for the clothes on our backs.

Nichole holly: The flames engulfed the hospital,

And the roof collapsed.

Kory honea: It consumed 18,000 structures.

15,000 of those structures were homes,

Places where people lived.

Karen davis: And I learned.

The next road up from where we were

Trapped, that's where five people died

Trying to run from the flames.

85 people lost their lives.

There's nowhere you can go in butte county

Where you don't run into somebody who

Was burned out of their home or knew somebody

Who perished in the fire.

Todd abel: All over the western united states,

These fires are more intense.

Wildland firefighters are a big part of trying to mitigate

These natural disasters.

Hotshots are sort of a breed of their own.

Kyle dickman: Hotshot firefighters are crews

Of 20 people, men and women.

Desiree steed: They fight fire from the frontlines.

Kyle dickman: Their job is to go anywhere in the country

Where there's a bad fire.

And they'll spend as long as two weeks or three

Weeks on a single fire.

I'm a former granite mountain hotshot.

It's really not a job.

It's a lifestyle and career.

Kyle dickman: The granite mountain

Hotshots were a hotshot crew.

Came from the city of prescott, arizona.

Eric marsh was the superintendent of the granite

Mountain hotshots.

A very meticulous man, very intelligent.

And then there was jesse steed.

Desiree steed: Jesse was the captain.

So he was second in command.

Prior to that, he was also in the marine corps.

He was tough, 6' 4" and 220 pounds.

Always put his family first, his kids first.

Brendan mcdonough: Jesse was a mentor,

And he was a dad that I so desperately wanted to be like.

Desiree steed: He could handle all kinds

Of excruciating, backbreaking labor and work

And actually enjoyed it.

[music playing]

Todd abel: In arizona, June is usually kind of that month

Where everybody's hair on the back of your neck stands up,

And we start getting higher temperatures.

The relative humidity drops.

The fuel moistures drop.

Kyle dickman: It was just perfectly primed

For extreme fire behavior.

Todd abel: We start getting monsoon buildups,

Which sometimes throw out the dry lightning,

Which starts fires.

The morning of June 30, the hotshots on the crew

Were woken up by a phone call.

We got to go.

We got a fire in yarnell.

A lightning strike from a couple of days

Ago started multiple fires.

It was about 500 acres.

The reason this fire was concerning

Was that it was on a ridgeline above a town.

Todd abel: There was peeples valley to the north.

And then to the south-southeast was the town of yarnell.

I remember getting out of the buggy, and jesse was like, hey,

Grab-- grab extra water today.

It's going to be hot.

Todd abel: There's different strategies

In wildland firefighting.

We use fixed-wing airplanes and rotor-wing helicopters

To help reduce the intensity of the fire.

Then we can get our men and women

On there, our boots on the ground I call it, to actually

Finish putting it out.

[chainsaw buzzing]

John jessen: Most effective, especially when

Fires are larger and stuff, is removing the fuels,

Creating control lines.

Kyle dickman: What they're doing is

They're taking away what the fire

Eats so the fire can't burn it.

Once you get to the edge of the fire,

That's when the work really starts.

Yeah!

Ow!

It's not just the backbreaking work of digging.

Digging, digging, digging for days on end.

Kyle dickman: They use chainsaws a lot.

Brendan mcdonough: You're removing

Everything for miles on end.

So if that tree is 60 feet tall, you're

Cutting that entire tree down.

It's not for the faint of heart.

Sometimes we do use fire to fight fires.

Kristen honig: Using drip torches

To burn the fuel in a controlled fashion so that by the time

The main flaming front got there,

There would be no more fuel for it to burn.

And that would stop the fire's advance.

Todd abel: A lot of times, we'll do a lot of those firing

Operations at night, where we have better control

Over what that looks like.

Kyle dickman: So June 30, the yarnell hill fire

Is just ripping to the north.

And the priority is to stop this fire on the northern edge.

And we start hiking in.

We were on the fire's edge.

The flaming front was two to three miles long.

Probably had 20-, 30-foot flame lengths.

Kyle dickman: Jesse steed asked brendan "donut"

Mcdonough to act as a lookout down in the valley

Below the ridgeline.

Brendan mcdonough: And I hiked into my lookout spot

Closer towards the active edge of the fire,

And I'm at a lower elevation.

[music playing]

I got the word from our fire behavior analyst that

Called and said, hey, we got some thunderstorm developments

Developing north of us.

Kyle dickman: Thunderstorms are extremely

Dangerous to firefighters because they

Create erratic winds.

And erratic winds create erratic fire behavior.

Todd abel: That's what changes our environment.

And that's what causes our injuries

And some of our fatalities.

Kyle dickman: It was a warning to the hotshots

That by the afternoon of June 30,

They could be dealing with a fire

That was completely different than it

Was behaving in the morning.

[music playing]

Kyle dickman: Two things that firefighters

Pay the most attention to, fuels and weather.

Paul hessburg: Weather is one of the ficklest parts

Of a wildfire.

Mark finney: Aside from drought or dry conditions,

The wind is probably responsible for the greatest variation.

Another aspect of the wind that makes wildfires dangerous

Is the shifting direction.

The wind can be coming out of the west, for example,

And suddenly shift to coming out of the north.

Todd abel: So thunderstorm developments,

It'll push wind multiple directions.

[lightning crackling]

Brad elder: We've all been standing

Outside watching a front hit and suddenly

Get hit by this wall of wind.

Kyle dickman: What happens with these thunderstorms,

They start to rain.

Brad elder: And that water is now falling,

And it's pulling air with it.

So we have this rush of air coming

Down, slamming into the ground and moving

Out in all directions.

Wherever that cell is, it could push winds from the north

To the south, the south to the north.

Brad elder: If you don't know that's going to happen

Or know how it's going to shift, that's

A real dangerous situation.

[music playing]

Kyle dickman: June 30, the yarnell hill fire

Is just ripping to the north.

Kyle dickman: And the hotshots were down on the southern edge,

What's called the heel of the fire, which is

Essentially where it started.

They were just supposed to start building

Line up around the fire to make sure that it didn't escape.

And late in the afternoon--

Thunderstorm hit probably around, I don't know, 4:15-ish.

Kyle dickman: All this cool air comes rushing down,

And it races out across this desert.

And it hits the fire.

And suddenly, the fire pivots and turns direction.

It had been running north.

But it turned and ran south.

Brendan mcdonough: That's pretty uncommon to see a fire

Completely shift 180 degrees.

Kyle dickman: And it began running straight at brendan

"donut" mcdonough, the lookout.

Brendan mcdonough: Captain jesse reached out because he could

See where I was from up top.

And so he called over the radio and said, "hey, donut,

I think it's about time for you to get out of there, man.

Move fast."

And I did that.

Got a ride down.

And so now this fire has turned around.

My brother is on the complete south end,

And I am on the north end, opposite ends of this fire.

So the granite mountain hotshots were

In what's called the blacks.

The best safety zone, where fire's already burnt.

Kyle dickman: All they were doing is watching the burn.

They can just look down and see this ominous scene.

There's these black smoke.

It's dark.

And it's just all the colors of hell sweeping down

This valley toward this town.

[music playing]

It became very clear that the town of yarnell

Was imminently threatened by this fire.

We started evacuating yarnell.

Man: We just pulled out.

Yarnell is blowing up.

Kyle dickman: The granite mountain hotshots,

They weren't doing a whole lot.

They couldn't do a whole lot.

So the hotshots decided to leave the safety of the black

And move back toward the town of yarnell,

Where presumably they could do something

To help the people that were soon

To be threatened by the fire.

And they're essentially climbing down these rocky cliffs

Into that canyon.

And when they do, they know they're going

To lose sight of the fire.

They can't see the fire.

And suddenly, the fire turns the corner of this ridge,

Pivoting and sweeping in front of them,

Fanning out into this flaming front.

At exactly that moment, they realized

That they are out of options.

Todd abel: It was moving so quick

That there was no way that a human could outrun that fire.

Kyle dickman: Suddenly, they come over the radio.

And what he's saying is, we need help,

And we need help right now.

They're in trouble.

Brendan mcdonough: And I remember

Them trying to call in water.

And that's when it became very frantic.

Kyle dickman: At that moment, nobody really knew

Where granite mountain was.

Todd abel: The last conversation I

Had with them was granite mountain was in the black

And that they were in a good spot.

No one knew that they had moved to the south end like that.

They are forced to do the only thing

They can do in that instance, to deploy their fire shelters.

Fire shelters are just these small, thin blankets

That reflect heat.

That's all they are.

They are tents that you pitch up and you climb into.

If you're deploying your fire shelter,

It's a last-case scenario.

That fire crew's in trouble.

They're in trouble.

A lot of things going through my brain at the same time

Of my heart being in my stomach.

Brendan mcdonough: The helicopter's

Trying to find them.

And it's-- the smoke is just so thick.

Bravo 33: Operations bravo 33.

[music playing]

Kyle dickman: You have 19 firefighters standing

In front of a flaming front.

Every firefighter on that fire, their jaws

Dropped and I'm sure their hearts broke because they now

Knew that their brothers, their colleagues

Were in very real danger.

Todd abel: We launched some helicopters to try to find them.

I absolutely had all kinds of hope

That the crew was going to be fine.

And I'm just waiting on the radio

And waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting.

And I hear there's 19 confirmed.

There were 19 dead bodies in the canyon.

I can feel it in my heart right now and in my stomach

Right now talking about it.

It was devastating.

Absolutely devastating.

I remember just sobbing.

Every negative emotion that could be felt,

I just felt in that moment.

I remember walking in, and they're just--

Everybody was crying.

And we were told that they were all gone.

Kyle dickman: And this was the worst fire tragedy that

Had happened in a generation.

Todd abel: They were fathers, sons, brothers,

Husbands, the whole nine yards.

They were good people.

They enjoyed wildland firefighting.

They had the passion for it.

The fact that I can tell my children

That their father died a hero has made a huge difference.

They can be proud of him for everything that he did.

Kyle dickman: The nation was captivated by it for months.

And they ended up making a hollywood movie

No matter what you hear--

We've got several aircraft coming to you.

--No matter what's going on--

We can't go back up there.

--Stay together--

Tell me when you hear the aircraft, ok?

--And look out for each other because you're a family.

No one could be prouder of his boys than I am of you guys.

And the fires that we fought when when we were young

Are nothing like the fires of today.

They're really, really dangerous.

And they're very, very threatening.

Todd abel: Longer duration, definitely larger fires.

How do you manage something like that?

Paul hessburg: In the western united states,

The fire season is 40 to 80 days longer.

In california, the fire season is nearly year-round today.

Steve pyne: The climate is--

Is morphing in ways that enhance fire.

It's acting as a performance enhancer.

Smoke has been carrying the fire problem to areas that

Otherwise are immune to it.

Reporter: Smoke from those fires traveling more than 500 miles.

It's philadelphia, boston, new york city, all the way

To the nation's capital.

Paul hessburg: The air quality index just ballooned in many

Of these metropolitan areas.

More people are being challenged by smoke-related injury

To human health.

Reporter: Wildfire smoke contains

Particulate matter, or pm 2.5.

Among the tiniest and most dangerous pollutants,

It's able to infiltrate the lungs and enter the bloodstream

And has been linked to conditions

Like asthma and heart disease.

The need to do something is urgent.

We have a lot of tools in the toolbox.

One of them is using prescribed burning.

Prescribed burning is intentional

Burning to invite the right kind of wildfire back to the forest.

There's a tremendous amount of science and skill

That go into this prescribed burning.

99.8% of them stay within the line.

It produces a tenth of the smoke.

So the numbers are really good.

Steve pyne: Some of these areas, we can go in, we can thin.

Not log, thin out.

It's a kind of woody weeding.

But it's the fire that matters most.

If you do the thinning but don't do the fire,

You're not really solving the problem.

Burning where you've got residents or small communities

Embedded in the landscape around, very difficult.

But almost certainly, they are going to burn.

And if we don't do it in some way,

Then they're going to burn probably

In the worst possible way.

Kyle dickman: It's like, you can pick your poison, right?

Like, you're either going to have prescribed fires,

Or you're going to have more big wildfires.

[music playing]

Steve pyne: Well, all this requires a political and social

Mechanism for us to come together

And argue over differences in values,

What we want public lands to be, how we want to do it.

And we're facing the point where we simply

Cannot pretend that we can control all

These fires as we would wish.

[music playing]

Kyle dickman: We can only do so much to insulate

Ourselves from those tragedies.

Like, the way that the system works

And the environment is changing, like, these are just--

They are realities.

Desiree steed: I want jesse to be remembered

For his strength of character.

He had a lot of integrity.

He was a great dad, a great husband.

Brendan mcdonough: Everyone's journey after the tragedy

Has been different.

There's a lot to learn from it.

For me, it's been giving back and, you know,

Paying it forward and trying to help people

Understand their sacrifice.

Karen davis, the nurse who survived the entrapment

In the mega fire in paradise, california,

Says she lost everything in the inferno.

Battling the trauma from the flames,

She decided to move to las vegas to be closer to her daughter

And rebuild her shattered life.

Once there, karen continued her career in health care.

She also decided to become a member of the henderson, nevada,

Community emergency response team, aiming to help

Others in future emergencies.

A testament to her inner strength and resiliency.

For more information on what you can do in a wildfire and how

To combat the growing climate crisis, please

Go to cnn.Com/violentearth.

I'm liev schreiber.

Thanks for watching.

Good night.