'We Feel Their Pain and Sorrow,' Murrieta Fire Chief Says About 19 Ariz. Firefighters Killed

The Murrieta Fire Department is joining its brothers in mourning 19 members of the Prescott Fire Department who perished Sunday while fighting a wildland fire near Yarnell, Ariz.

“Know that there are firefighters all across the country who feel their pain and their sorrow,” said Murrieta fire Chief Matt Shobert, who is familiar with the Granite Mountain Hotshots, the elite crew to which the fallen firefighters belonged, because he formerly served as the fire chief for Sedona, about 60 miles from Prescott.

“We had a couple of fires in 2006 that we had the Hotshots on,” Shobert said. “They work hard when no one is looking. They are a very esteemed crew, they are very well-trained. It is dirty, difficult and often unappreciated work they do out there.”

Hotshot crews—there are less than 200 in the U.S.— in particular carry all their supplies on packs weighing about 50 pounds as they hike to the often remote areas, and sleep and eat on the front lines.

In this case, the Granite Mountain Hotshots were assigned to the Yarnell Hill Fire, located about 35 miles southwest of Prescott. The fire had consumed more than 8,300 acres as of Monday with no word on containment.

News reports indicate the crew members were on the front lines of the fire Sunday afternoon and had deployed their emergency shelters after becoming nearly surrounded by the fierce moving flames that were fueled by wind, hot temperatures and dry vegetation.

Shobert described those emergency shelters as pup tents made out of a metallic fire-retardant material. The tents weigh about 8 or 9 pounds, and firefighters are required to wear them attached to their belts while working brush fires.

All Murrieta Fire Department crews are trained to use the tents in catastrophic scenarios such as this, he said.

“In the event of aggressive fire behavior where you can’t escape, your last resort is to pull it out, clear a space in the dirt, get in the tent and hang on to the shelter,” Shobert said.

He did not want to speculate on the circumstances that claimed these lives.

“We have been talking internally and with other fire departments this morning and it sounds to me like everything we have been warning about here locally—the elevated temperatures and dried out vegetation and winds—all just came together,” Shobert said. “It sounds like they made an effort, it was just too intense.”

The names of the 19 fallen firefighters—who were credited with working wildland fires across the western U.S.—were expected to be released later Monday. The 20-member hotshot crew is the only one in the country organized through a local fire department, The Prescott Daily Courier reported. One crew member who was assigned to a different location at the fire survived.

The loss is being reported as the worst in 80 years among U.S. wildfires, and the most firefighters lost since 9/11.

“It is just unimaginable that here we are with all of our safety measures, yet 12 hours ago we lost 19 firefighters,” Shobert said Monday morning.