By JOHN MARSHALL and JACQUES BILLEAUD 07/01/13 02:45 AM ET EDT
YARNELL, Ariz. — Gusty, hot winds blew an Arizona blaze out of control Sunday in a forest northwest of Phoenix, overtaking and killing 19 members of an elite fire crew in the deadliest wildfire involving firefighters in the U.S. for at least 30 years.
The “hotshot” firefighters were forced to deploy their emergency fire shelters – tent-like structures meant to shield firefighters from flames and heat – when they were caught near the central Arizona town of Yarnell, state forestry spokesman Art Morrison told The Associated Press.
The fire also destroyed an estimated 200 homes, Morrison said. Dry grass near the communities of Yarnell and Glen Isla fed the fast-moving blaze, which was whipped up by wind and raced through the homes, he said.
The fire still burned late Sunday, with flames lighting up the night sky in the forest above Yarnell, a town of about 700 residents about 85 miles northwest of Phoenix. Most people had evacuated from the town, and no injuries or other deaths were reported.
The fire started after a lightning strike on Friday and spread to at least 2,000 acres on Sunday amid triple-digit temperatures, low humidity and windy conditions.
Prescott Fire Chief Dan Fraijo said that the 19 dead firefighters were a part of the city’s fire department.
“We grieve for the family. We grieve for the department. We grieve for the city,” he said at a news conference Sunday evening. “We’re devastated. We just lost 19 of the finest people you’ll ever meet.”
Hot shot crews are elite firefighters who often hike for miles into the wilderness with chain saws and backpacks filled with heavy gear to build lines of protection between people and fires. They remove brush, trees and anything that might burn in the direction of homes and cities.
The crew killed in the blaze had worked other wildfires in recent weeks in New Mexico and Arizona, Fraijo said.”By the time they got there, it was moving very quickly,” he told the AP of Sunday’s fire.
He added that the firefighters had to deploy the emergency shelters when “something drastic” occurred.
“One of the last fail safe methods that a firefighter can do under those conditions is literally to dig as much as they can down and cover themselves with a protective – kinda looks like a foil type – fire-resistant material – with the desire, the hope at least, is that the fire will burn over the top of them and they can survive it,” Fraijo said.
“Under certain conditions there’s usually only sometimes a 50 percent chance that they survive,” he said. “It’s an extreme measure that’s taken under the absolute worst conditions.”
The National Fire Protection Association had previously listed the deadliest wildland fire involving firefighters as the 1994 Storm King Fire near Glenwood Springs, Colo., which killed 14 firefighters who were overtaken by a sudden explosion of flames.
U.S. wildfire disasters date back more than two centuries and include tragedies like the 1949 Mann Gulch fire near Helena, Mont., that killed 13, or the Rattlesnake blaze four years later that claimed 15 firefighters in Southern California.
President Barack Obama called the 19 firefighters heroes and said in a statement that the federal government was assisting state and local officials.
“This is as dark a day as I can remember,” Gov. Jan Brewer said in a statement. “It may be days or longer before an investigation reveals how this tragedy occurred, but the essence we already know in our hearts: fighting fires is dangerous work.”
What a tragedy…
Stung my heart when I heard it.
Thoughts and prayers. May these brave souls rest in peace.
Jerome
PRESCOTT, Ariz. — In a heartbreaking sight, a long line of vans from a coroner’s office carried the bodies of 19 elite firefighters out of the tiny mountain town of Yarnell on Monday, as the wind-driven wildfire that claimed the men’s lives burned out of control.
About 200 more firefighters arrived to the scorching mountains, doubling the number of firefighters battling the blaze, ignited by lightning.
Many of them were wildfire specialists like the 19 fatally trapped Sunday – a group of firefighters known as Hotshots called to face the nation’s fiercest wildfires.
With no way out, the Prescott-based crew did what they were trained to do: They unfurled their foil-lined, heat-resistant tarps and rushed to cover themselves. But that last, desperate line of defense couldn’t save them.
The deaths of the Granite Mountain Hotshots marked the nation’s biggest loss of firefighters in a wildfire in 80 years. Only one member of the 20-person crew survived, and that was because he was moving the unit’s truck at the time.
Arizona’s governor called it “as dark a day as I can remember” and ordered flags flown at half-staff.
“I know that it is unbearable for many of you, but it also is unbearable for me. I know the pain that everyone is trying to overcome and deal with today,” said Gov. Jan Brewer, her voice catching several times as she addressed reporters and residents at Prescott High School in the town of 40,000.
President Barack Obama called Brewer on Monday from Africa and reinforced his commitment to providing necessary federal support to battle the fire that spread to 13 square miles after destroying 50 homes. More than 200 homes were threatened in the town of 700 people.
Obama also offered his administration’s help to state officials investigating the tragedy, and predicted it will force government leaders to answer broader questions about how they handle increasingly destructive and deadly wildfires.
Brewer said the blaze “exploded into a firestorm” that overran the crew.
Prescott City Councilman Len Scamardo said the wind changed directions and brought 40 to 50 mph gusts that caused the firefighters to become trapped around 3 p.m. Sunday. The blaze grew from 200 acres to about 2,000 in a matter of hours.
Southwest incident team leader Clay Templin said the crew and its commanders were following safety protocols, and it appears the fire’s erratic nature simply overwhelmed them.
The Hotshot team had spent recent weeks fighting fires in New Mexico and Prescott before being called to Yarnell, entering the smoky wilderness over the weekend with backpacks, chainsaws and other heavy gear to remove brush and trees as a heat wave across the Southwest sent temperatures into the triple digits.
Prescott Fire Chief Dan Fraijo said he feared the worst when he received a call Sunday afternoon from someone assigned to the fire.
“All he said was, `We might have bad news. The entire Hotshot crew deployed their shelters,'” Fraijo said. “When we talk about deploying the shelters, that’s an automatic fear, absolutely. That’s a last-ditch effort to save yourself when you deploy your shelter.”
Arizona Forestry Division spokesman Mike Reichling said all 19 victims had deployed their emergency shelters as they were trained to do.
As a last resort, firefighters are supposed to step into the shelters, lie face down on the ground and pull the fire-resistant fabric completely over themselves. The shelter is designed to reflect heat and trap cool, breathable air inside for a few minutes while a wildfire burns over a person.
But its success depends on firefighters being in a cleared area away from fuels and not in the direct path of a raging inferno of heat and hot gases.
The glue holding the layers of the shelter together begins to come apart at about 500 degrees, well above the 300 degrees that would almost immediately kill a person.
“It’ll protect you, but only for a short amount of time. If the fire quickly burns over you, you’ll probably survive that,” said Prescott Fire Capt. Jeff Knotek. But “if it burns intensely for any amount of time while you’re in that thing, there’s nothing that’s going to save you from that.”
Fire officials gave no further details about the shelters being deployed. The bodies were taken to Phoenix for autopsies to determine exactly how the firefighters died.
The U.S. has 110 Hotshot crews, according to the U.S. Forest Service website. They typically have about 20 members each and go through specialized training.
Many of those killed were graduates of Prescott High, including 28-year-old Clayton Whitted, who as a firefighter would work out on the same campus where he played football for the Prescott Badgers from 2000 to 2004.
The school’s football coach, Lou Beneitone, said Whitted was the type of athlete who “worked his fanny off.”
“He wasn’t a big kid, and many times in the game, he was overpowered by big men, and he still got after it. He knew, `This man in front of me is a lot bigger and stronger than me,’ but he’d try it and he’d smile trying it,” Beneitone said.
He and Whitted had talked a few months ago about how this year’s fire season could be a “rough one.”
“I shook his hand, gave him a hug, and said, `Be safe out there,'” Beneitone recalled. “He said, `I will, Coach.'”
Hundreds of people were evacuated from the Yarnell area. In addition to the flames, downed power lines and exploding propane tanks continued to threaten what was left of the town, said fire information officer Steve Skurja. A light rain fell over the area but did little to slow the fire.
“It’s a very hazardous situation right now,” Skurja said.
Arizona is in the midst of a historic drought that has left large parts of the state highly flammable.
“Until we get a significant showing of the monsoons, it’s showtime, and it’s dangerous, really dangerous,” incident commander Roy Hall said.
The National Fire Protection Association website lists the last wildfire to kill more firefighters as the 1933 Griffith Park blaze in Los Angeles, which killed 29. The biggest loss of firefighters in U.S. history was 343, killed in the 9/11 attack on New York.
In 1994, the Storm King Fire near Glenwood Springs, Colo., killed 14 firefighters who were overtaken by an explosion of flames.
A makeshift memorial of flower bouquets and American flags formed at the Prescott fire station where the crew was based.
More than 1,000 people turned out Monday to a gym at the Prescott campus of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to honor those killed.
At the end of the ceremony, dozens of wildfire fighters sporting Hotshot shirts and uniforms from other jurisdictions marched down the bleachers to the front of the auditorium, their heavy work boots drumming a march on the wooden steps.
They bowed their heads for a moment of silence in memory of their fallen comrades as slides bearing each man’s name and age were projected behind them.
Our Heroic Hotshots
As ever, I am in awe of the courageous acts demonstrated by the men and women that fight our Nations fires. Battling the flames at the fires edge their lives often hang by a slender thread. Professionalism, knowledge, training and the rules that are written in blood are their shield. But every Firefighter knows that the unexpected lays in wait and can instantly turn a routine situation into a life threatening emergency.
Yesterday we had a dispatch to a fire near a PG&E substation with high energy power lines running everywhere. It wasn’t safe to drop retardant through the energized lines so we orbited and watched as our Firefighters on the ground attacked the flames. As the power lines shorted out they exploded over their heads. For those of us watching it was more dramatic than any Hollywood movie but for them it was just another fire and just another day.
At the Iwo Jima Memorial there is an inscription at its base that reads “Uncommon Valor was a Common Virtue”. Like the Marines our Firefighters always run toward the danger to provide for the protection and safety of others.
Our 19 Heroic Hot Shots died in the performance of their duty, in harms way they fought a battle against an uncaring enemy to protect the little town of Yarnell and made the ultimate sacrifice.
John 15-13: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”.
This is the creed of all firefighters everywhere.
Love and Respect,
Jim Barnes
APNewsBreak: Commanders asked for 6 air tankers 45 minutes before Arizona firefighter deaths. July 12, 2013
PHOENIX – An Arizona wildfire was so out of control because of winds from a nearby thunderstorm that officials asked for half the available Western U.S. air tanker fleet nearly an hour before 19 members of a Hotshot crew were killed, records obtained by the Associated Press Friday show.
The records from the federal Bureau of Land Management show Arizona officials asked for six heavy air tankers at 4:08 p.m. on June 30, about 50 minutes after outflowing high winds from a nearby thunderstorm began driving the wildfire toward the small town of Yarnell. National Weather Service officials issued a wind warning to fire managers at 3:26 p.m. that day. The firefighters radioed that they were trapped and getting into the emergency fire shelters at 4:47 p.m.
The six planes were never deployed or arrived because of the limited number of tankers in the nation’s aerial firefighting fleet and the dangerous weather conditions at the time. Fire officials said even if they had been available winds were so strong they couldn’t have been used to save the firefighters’ lives.
But the fact that so many planes were requested provides more proof that firefighters were facing an increasingly dangerous scenario. There were only 12 heavy tankers available that day in the Western U.S.
“It is significant, and it makes an exclamation point to the situation, doesn’t it,” said Jim Paxon, a spokesman for the Arizona Division of Forestry, which was managing the fire.
The agency asked for the six heavy tankers when the thunderstorm started kicking up fire activity but they didn’t get them because none were available. This was nearly an hour before out of control flames trapped the 19 members of the Granite Mountain hotshots and lead to the nation’s worst wildland fire tragedy since 1933.
Despite the size of the order and what the state Forestry Division says was the dire danger to the town, there was no sign crews were in immediate danger. There also wasn’t any sense of urgency conveyed when the air tankers were ordered, federal officials said.
Don Smurthwaite, a spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Idaho, described the request for six large tankers as “coincidental and not consequential” to the fate of the doomed Hotshot crew.
He said none of the dispatch records related to the request show “any expression firefighters were in trouble.
“We did not know at this level how much jeopardy the Granite Mountain Hotshot crew was in,” said Smurthwaite, whose agency oversees the deployment of firefighting aircraft in wildfires.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2013/07/12/apnewsbreak-commanders-asked-for-6-air-tankers-45-minutes-before-arizona/#ixzz2YyDjVsQq