the lone survivor from the 20-man crew was 21-year-old brendan mcdonough. he had been serving as a lookout when the fire threatened to overtake his position. mcdonough was hiking out on foot when he was located by brian frisby, the superintendent of the blue ridge hotshots, who was monitoring the radio communications between mcdonough and the granite mountain ihc captain. frisby and mcdonough moved the crew's vehicles to a safer location, which they were doing at the time of granite mountain crew's entrapment.