TEXAS, USA — April 19, 1993 marked the end of the deadly siege that took place at the Branch Davidian Compound in Mount Carmel, just miles outside of Waco.
The 51-day standoff between the federal agents and the heavily armed religious group began Feb. 28, 1993. By the end of it, four Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) died, along with nearly 80 Branch Davidians, including the deaths of around 20 children.
6 News reporters and anchors who originally covered the tragedy and watched as the chaos unfolded 30 years ago.
"I had worked the night before and I remember, I got a call from the news director to come back, come back in later in the morning because at that time, they had started going into the compound with the tanks," said Mike Snuffer, who was the evening anchor at the time.
The armored vehicles were moving in and poking holes in the compound to inject tear gas into the side of the walls, he said.
"We thought, 'Well, is today the day something happens' and then, you know, something that did happen," Richard Tolleson, 6 News' former morning meteorologist and reporter, recalled.
In a matter of minutes, the station realized the compound was engulfed in flames.
Stacey Fager was the morning reporter who was at the compound the day the siege ended.
"Stacy was the one, the voice that I recall on our live shot," Tolleson said. "She said 'Well, what's that smell,' and this is after the fire is already going. I don't think she was smelling the fire per se. I think she was smelling the burned off gas, whatever that was. That's what stuck in my mind all those years."
The media didn't immediately find out what caused the fire, they said. Snuffer said early on, there was speculation for weeks and months following the investigation. He said they later found out that it was Branch Davidian leader, David Koresh, who ordered the torching of it.
"There was almost this media blackout," Snuffer said. "ATF was trying to get their act together. FBI was coming in you know, who was in charge? We had a whole 24-48 hours just to sit back and like what's going on here? They started having news conferences twice a day... of what was going on."
Tolleson said on a policy level, he hopes we have learned to think before we act.
"David Koresh could have been picked up at any time when he went to town without this big raid," Tolleson said. "I think they thought they could take the compound pretty easily in the initial raid and it sadly did not work out like that. Not only all those agents, but then all the men and women and children that died in the ensuing fire."
After the raid, Snuffer recalled seeing flags all over the place. He said the flags marked either bodies or remains.
"All the bodies were taken to the morgue in Fort Worth, I believe, and so we had continuous coverage of that, there just bringing bodies after bodies, after bodies, after bodies," Snuffer said.
Despite 6 News not being the first ones at the scene, reporters and anchors say they stuck it out to the very end.
"I think that's an important journalism lesson," Tolleson said. "Don't just shoot some video and go home, but stay there. Journalists have to look at and document horrible things to hopefully help everybody learn from it."
"It was a horrible, tragic day," Snuffer said. "It's a lesson that how one individual can change the lives of so many. I mean, you had one person, David Koresh and 70, more than 70 followers who followed him to the grave. I mean, just think about it, you know, just the influence that he had... You had dozens of innocent children who died in that for what, for what reason?"