The Yarnell Hill fire is seen burning in this view from Highway I-17 near Arizona yesterday.
PRESCOTT: Fire investigators in central Arizona launched a probe yesterday into how wind-driven flames closed in on and killed 19 specially trained firemen in a tragedy that marked the greatest loss of life among firefighters in a US wildland blaze in 80 years.
The precise circumstances surrounding Sunday’s deaths of all but one of a 20-member elite “hotshots” firefighting team remained unclear a day after they perished while battling a blaze that has destroyed scores of homes and forced the evacuation of two towns.
But fire officials said the young men fell victim to a volatile mix of erratic winds gusting to gale-force intensity, low humidity, a sweltering heat wave, and thick, drought-parched brush that had not burned in some 40 years.
The doomed firefighters had managed to deploy their personal fire shelters, tent-like safety devices designed to deflect heat and trap breathable air, in a last-ditch effort to survive that ultimately proved futile, officials said.
Peter Andersen, a former local Fire District chief who assisted in the early firefighting efforts, said some of the men on the ground made it into their shelters and some did not, according to an account relayed by a ranger helicopter crew flying over the area. “There was nothing they (helicopter crew) could do to get to them,” he said.
The blaze was ignited on Friday by lightning near the town of Yarnell, about 128km northwest of Phoenix, and by yesterday was still raging unchecked after scorching some 8,400 acres of tinder-dry chaparral and grasslands.
Authorities ordered the evacuation of Yarnell and the adjoining town of Peeples Valley. The two towns are southwest of Prescott and home to roughly 1,000 people. A Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office spokesman said at least 200 structures had been destroyed, most of them in Yarnell, a community consisting largely of retirees. And fire officials said most of the building lost were homes.
Authorities said that figure was a rough estimate and that a more accurate assessment of property losses was expected later.
The so-called Yarnell Hills blaze was one of dozens of wildfires in several western US states in recent weeks.
Arizona Forestry Commission spokesman Mike Reichling said one member of the 20-man crew had been driving in a separate location and survived unhurt. Eighteen of the dead were members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots team, assigned to the Prescott Fire Department, and the 19th victim belonged to another crew who was working with the fallen team, Reichling said.
Evacuee Rick McKenzie, 53, a bow hunter and ranch caretaker, said the fire had “exploded” on Sunday, with flames 30 to 40 feet high racing across an area of oak and brush and that he had warned the Hotshots about the dense oak woods where they would be working.
The Hotshots were highly trained firefighters with rigorous fitness standards. All were required to take an 80-hour critical training course and refresher yearly, according to the group’s website. The deaths brought an outpouring of tributes from political leaders, including from US President Barack Obama.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer called the deaths “one of our state’s darkest, most devastating days.” She ordered state flags flown at half staff till tomorrow.
Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, said: “This devastating loss is a reminder of the grave risks our firefighters take every day on our behalf in Arizona and in communities across this nation. Their sacrifice will never be forgotten.”
Reuters
