To be fair, you're just hypothesising now, though, aren't you?
No, for me, there's no excuse for getting killed by a forest fire in this day and age. I can't imagine what they thought they were up to.
We are assuming that the Fire Service are battling the fire 24 hours a day. However, we cannot rule out the possibility that 16:00 comes & they simply down tools and head off for some raki. 'We'll pick this up in the morning, lads'.