Sad Day in Arizona

      Arizona lost nineteen elite "hotshot" firefighters yesterday evening fighting the Yarnell Hill fire.  All but one of the nineteen was from the same firefighting team...The Granite Mountain Hotshots of Prescott, Arizona.   One member of that team survived because he was not with the others.   The fire is still 0% contained and now covers over 8,000 acres.
      Hotshots are the specially trained firefighters the form the frontline fighters when it comes to forest fires and other wilderness fires.   This is the largest number of US wildfire firefighters killed in the line of duty in a single day/event since 29 were killed in Los Angeles Griffith Park in 1933.
      To give non-Arizonans a perspective on why I would post this on a Treasure Hunting website,  the town of Yarnell (which is now over half destroyed by the same fire), stands on the edge of a huge cliff over looking Fool's Gulch (yeah, the one with the safe that washed away in the flood that wiped out Wickenburg), and the mining ghost towns of Rich Hill, Stanton, Octave, and Congress.   It was situated on what was the main stage and automobile route for over 100 years between Tucson, Phoenix, Wickenburg, Yuma, and southern California and the towns of northern Arizona such as Prescott (long time territorial capital) and Flagstaff.   The stage route through Yarnell passed by Skull Valley and several other sites made famous in Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey novels.

BA

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   Yeah, the first I knew about the fire was when the wife and I were getting ready to drive home from Prescott.    A friend of hers knows that we usually come back by way of Yarnell because of the history and the view and call to tell us not to since the road was closed.    Which was fine, we were already planning on taking the faster Interstate highway as it was late and a storm (probably the same one responsible for the quirky winds that killed the crew) had dumped a lot of rain on Prescott.   The road down from Yarnell is NOT one you choose to drive in less than ideal conditions unless you have to.   It was only a couple of hours after we got home that we heard about the firefighters.
   I'm not sure whether it was the same storm, since Arizona monsoons are kind of strange, but assuming it was, while the storm was centered on Prescott, it was a good and welcome thing....provided much needed moisture and dropped the temperatures about 35 F....but once it moved on, the results weren't so good.   Too bad it had dumped it's rain by the time it got to Yarnell or it probably would have had a happy ending instead of a deadly one.    The winds associated with the storm were very strong and very erratic which caused the fire to change directions and essentially surround and overcome the firefighters.   They all had personal fire resistant shelters which they were all able to deploy---but the shelters did them no good in this case since several of them were found inside their shelter.

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BA, a truly sad day. Tragic for the families of the firefighters and tragic for the people of Yarnell.

 Here in Florida we are setting ourselves up for a tragedy not unlike that. It has been a lot wetter here over the last decade and fires are easier to supress so we haven't had fires to burn off the underbrush and it just keeps building up. I was in the Withlacoochee State Forrest 3 weeks ago and the understory growth (shrubs) has reached over half the height of the 70 foot pines.   This coupled with semi-urban development which is being built out into wild areas makes a dangerous situation. The state of Florida has cut back on funds to do controlled burns and fire lane construction and they have shut down almost all fire towers. I predict in the next extended dry period, Florida will have deadly wildfires...Gambol said this... The problem here is not dry weather which will surely come, The problem is housing development in places that are vulnerable. 

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  Very tragic news , condolences to the families and friends of these Brave people who put them selves in harms way on the frontline . Mick

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  Bad New for All.   Half of the Western States have major fires about now.  One minute your safe and doing your thing and the wind changes a bit and your in Deep Trouble.

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