YEAR: 2003

SEASON: Fall

MONTH: September

STATE: California

COUNTY: Trinity County

LOCATION DETAILS: In the Shasta/Trinity Forest

NEAREST TOWN: Close to Del Loma, CA

OBSERVED: I was working in the northern part of New Mexico training to be a Wildland Fire Fighter. In September 2003 (maybe the second week of that month) I was dispatched with 22 other people to the Del Loma Fire in the Shasta/Trinity Forest area, the Northern part of California. Each Crew had about 20 people, our plane that left Albuquerque held 2 crews. For almost the whole two weeks, we were all on standby. On the 4th to the last day of our 2 weeks of Fire call, we were setting up camp close to a river, about 5-10 miles out from the original forest fire. It was close to sun down when, a couple of guys were amazed at something. I heard them from inside my tent, but just ignored the whole thing until one of my crew members came and pulled me out of my tent.

I had no idea what I was supposed to be looking at or for. He pointed across the river and I was in shock when he pointed out the biggest, hairiest mammal I had ever seen just walking along the river side minding his own business. It stopped and looked at us. The way he stood on his hind legs was like an ordinary human. He had dark, long hair and stood about 7ft tall with a muscular build.

At this point I was the 4th person standing there in amazement. Maybe about 5 minutes of watching him watch us, with more people coming out with flashlights (because the sun was still going down) he darted in to the trees. He was running, taking long strides, and was gone in about 3 seconds.....and was literally pushing trees out of his way (not breaking them, but pushing them out of his way). The trees behind him on his path up the mountain were swaying back and forth. I was surprised to see to these trees moving because they are thick in width and very tall.

By this time it was dark but lit enough to see which way he was headed. Up the mountain a little, there was a clearing, where we spotted him again before he disappeared for good. He made no noise, no yelling or screaming. He was just as timid as can be.

I have heard many stories about Bigfoot, and known that they are real but when seeing one in real life....you get a sense of respect for them and just have that feeling that there is more to life than you know.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Suppertime close to evening, maybe about 4pm-5pm.

ENVIRONMENT: Huge mountains, lots of pine trees, bush, a huge river nearby, The great Outdoors.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Brandon Kiel:

I spoke to the witness for nearly 45 minutes. She is very sincere and credible.

Additional information gathered during the conversation :

The time of day was dusk but still light enough to see color and detail. She says the animal was walking down the river bank approximately 25 yards from the campsite. It did not seem to notice the slowly gathering crowd until a few of them began to shine flashlights in its direction. It was brown in color and the hair was 5"-6" in length. She could not make out the sex of the animal. The eyes had a reflective shine to them but she could not make out whites of the eyes or a color.

No one yelled at the animal or attempted to disturb it. At first it seemed intrigued by them but after about 2-3 minutes it became spooked and turned to run into the woods that lined the river banks. She said it showed great strength in that it easily pushed aside good sized trees to make its escape and that they could plot its path through the woods by watching the movements of the trees.

The silhouette of the animal was seen again as it came into a clearing, and then went out of view. There were no vocalizations during the observation.

The witness is female and from the Apache Indian Reservation (Jicarilla) in northern New Mexico. She is a now 21 year-old, reserve woodland firefighter.


We'll found out if she is willing to host a blog in order to take questions directly.

We'd like some recommendations on the best, free, blogging site, that is both easy to use, and has a posting system she can fully moderate.

Regarding ther eyewitnesses: According to the witness, they came from all over. Tracking them down is possible, but they may get in touch with us on their own before that.

If you were one of the other eyewitnesses to this incident during the Del Loma Fire of September, 2003, please contact us via the Comments form -- see the link to the Comments form at the top of the sighting report form.

About BFRO Investigator Brandon Kiel:

Brandon Kiel is a professional photographer and naturalist living in the Bay Area.

He was the chief coordinator of Northern California Expeditions for 7 years and has planned/attended more than 20 expeditions throughout the US.