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LiveNOW & Then: The Waco siege unfolds on live TV
The standoff in Waco was headline news across the U.S. for weeks. In this LiveNOW & Then full episode, we hear about the challenges of covering the Branch Davidians, the government response, and the fiery siege fairly and accurately.
WACO, Texas - In 1993, the federal government was involved in a deadly 51-day standoff on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.
The siege resulted in 76 people’s deaths, including 25 children.
The Waco Siege would come to be known as one of the most infamously botched raids in the federal government’s history.
"I don't think I've ever been involved in a story that involved more mass coverage, intensive coverage for such a long time," Richard Ray, a longtime former reporter with FOX 4 Dallas, told FOX Local. "I would rank it certainly one of the most memorable stories I ever covered."
The Branch Davidians' Mount Carmel compound outside of Waco, Texas, is the epicenter of the 1993 raid by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). (Photo by Greg Smith/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
Waco siege timeline
Feb. 28, 1993
Officials set up a command post outside the Branch Davidian compound, and as agents attempted their first raid, gunfire ensued.
Several agents and cult members were killed. This began the weeks-long standoff.
March 1, 1993
Negotiations continued, and over the course of the day, 10 children are sent out of the compound. By 5 p.m. Central Time, the FBI takes control with a fully functioning command post.
April 4, 1993
The lawyers meet again with Koresh and reiterate that everyone will come out after Passover.
April 7, 1993
Koresh refuses to confirm an exit date. High-ranking FBI officials from Washington discuss strategy in Waco, and HRT commander Richard Rogers proposes a tear gas plan.
April 18, 1993
As weeks into the standoff dragged on, the crowds of news media who camped out around the compound to cover the incident, began to leave.
Known as "Satellite City" or "Media City," the hordes of reporters started thinning out until there were only a few local news outlets left, according to Ray.
"I was home fishing on a Sunday afternoon with my son when I got a page again from the station," Ray continued. "I was told, ‘You got to go back to Waco first thing in the morning, something big is gonna happen.’ Well, by that time I thought, ‘Yeah, right. Nothing's gonna happen. We've been told that for 50 days now.’ Well, we got down there and there were only two crews, our crew, the local affiliate CBS crew out of Dallas, the CBS crew from CBS, and one other photographer who was a friend of the CBS reporter who'd gotten the tip, but she got the tip from an FBI agent who told her something big was going to happen on Monday morning and it certainly did."
April 19, 1993
Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation utilized two tanks to penetrate the compound and deposited 400 containers of gas inside.
At around noon local time, several fires broke out simultaneously around the compound and gunfire was heard inside, according to History.com.
Firefighters were unable to enter the compound due to safety concerns, and the entire property became engulfed in flames.
The Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, is shown engulfed by flames in this April 20, 1993, file photo. Retreating from its past denials, the FBI is acknowledging that federal agents fired one or more incendiary tear gas canisters during the sta …
Waco Siege fire debate
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Though the FBI maintained that David Koresh ordered his followers to start the fires, Ray noted that congressional hearings later revealed the tear gas canisters used by the FBI were not as "non-incendiary" as initially claimed.
"Watching that from two miles away, it did appear to me that it started simultaneously in like three different places," Ray told FOX. Whether the fire was a suicide pact or an accident caused by federal tactics is a question Ray believes will remain a point of skepticism and debate for decades to come.
The Source: Information for this article was taken from History.com, PBS, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives website, and an interview conducted with Richard Ray on April 13, 2026.