usually when a whole crew is lost, it is in a motor vehicle accident. Hundreds died in the Big Blowup in 1910, and a whole crew of smokejumpers were lost in Mann Gulch in Montana in the 1940's, and a whole crew was lost in the Rattlesnake Fire in the late 40's. Those are the ones i know about, i didn't take time to do a google search. The ones i mentioned are the ones taught in fire school.
A 180 degree shift in wind that was unpredicted and when safety zones are not adequate and risk is being taken, hotshots out in front have to depend upon others as lookouts, and such moves are inherently dangerous. I feel terrible for the guys that got hung out. When i was on such crews or in charge of them, the cardinal rule is that protecting vegetation is not worth a life. With safety guidelines that are in place nowadays, a whole series of things have to go wrong to put firefighter lives in jeopardy.
One other factor is that too much emphasis is put on fire shelters (reflective tents) as a safety fall-back... using technology as a fall-back instead of one's head to anticipate and avoid such situations seems to lead to fatalities nearly every year, but not at the scale of a whole hotshot crew.
In the end, firefighting is just plain dangerous if you are at the flaming front, which is where hotshots live. I was on a fire outside of phoenix in the 70's for a month, called the Castle Fire, and it got phenomenally hot... i can still remember how energy-sapping it was to be out in 110 degrees in full fire gear, drinking gallons of water and not peeing all day. We rotated to night shifts for awhile to protect the firefighters, and i distinctly remember people jostling to find shade to sleep in during the day, the shade of the outhouses in camp was prime real estate. Nowadays they have dome tents and gatorade, a luxury we would have welcomed bigtime.
Lots of times inexperienced leaders get green crews into trouble, but i know that any hotshot superintendent would not be inexperienced. That is why i know that a combination of things were necessary to get them trapped. My heart goes out to them.
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