Escaping firefighters entering the east drainage to relative safety radioed and yelled for the two helitack crewmen to follow them down the drainage. Browning and Tyler never responded and made a dash to the northeast.
The two helitack crewmembers were forced by the fire to go northwest from the smokejumper drop zone toward a bare rocky outcropping. As they neared the rocky face, they encountered a 50 foot deep gulley.
Evidence gathered during the postfire inspection suggests that after entering the gully, they set their gear down and moved about 30 feet down the gully where they attempted to deploy their fire shelters.
The postfire evidence suggests that the two firefighters, Browning and Tyler, were incapacitated and died when they were engulfed in hot air and smoke before they could fully deploy and enter their fire shelters (X). These two firefighters could not be found for dozens of hours after the hotshots were located leading to false hopes that they may have survived.
