An elite squad of 19 Arizona firemen killed in the worst U.S. wildland firefighting tragedy in 80 years apparently was outflanked by wind-whipped flames in seconds, before some could scramble into cocoon-like personal shelters, reports Reuters.
Details of Sunday’s deaths of all but one member of a specially trained, 20-man “Hotshots” team remained vague a day after they perished in a fire that destroyed scores of homes and forced the evacuation of two towns in central Arizona.
Fire officials said the young men fell victim to a highly 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 fire was sparked on Friday by lightning near the town of Yarnell, about 80 miles northwest of Phoenix. It was still raging unchecked on Monday after scorching some 8,400 acres of tinder-dry chaparral and grasslands.
Still, conditions faced by the “Hotshots,” who fight flames at close range with hand tools, were typical for the wildfires they are trained to battle, fire officials said.
They were trapped as a wind storm kicked up and the fire suddenly exploded on Sunday, said Peter Andersen, a former Yarnell fire chief who was helping the firefighting effort.
“The smoke had turned and was blowing back on us,” Andersen said. “It looked almost like a smoke tornado, and the winds were going every which way.”
The powerful gusts abruptly split the fire, driving it in two directions, then pushing flames back in on the Hotshot crew, who were working on one flank of the fire front, he said.
The firefighters deployed their personal shelters, capsule-like devices designed to deflect heat and trap breathable air, in a last-ditch effort to survive, officials said.
Andersen 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.
Prescott Fire Department Chief Dan Fraijo said Hotshot crews typically establish a secure “safety zone” to which they can retreat if flames start to close in on them.
Sunday’s disaster in Arizona marks the highest death toll among firefighters from a U.S. wildland fire since 29 men died battling the Griffith Park fire of 1933 in Los Angeles, according to the National Fire Protection Association.
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