PRESCOTT, Arizona: Weary crews yesterday looked for a break in the weather to gain ground against a fierce Arizona wildfire that has already killed 19 of their fellow firefighters in the worst wildland fire tragedy in 80 years.
Fire managers say the so-called Yarnell Hills fire, which has already charred nearly 8,400 acres of tinder-dry chaparral and grasslands northwest of Phoenix, was zero percent contained as darkness fell on Monday evening.
The lightning-sparked blaze, which broke out on Friday afternoon near the community of Yarnell, has torched some 200 structures, most of them homes.
On Sunday, an elite squad of 19 firefighters died in the fire after they were outflanked and engulfed by wind-whipped flames in seconds, before some could scramble into cocoon-like personal shelters.
Details of Sunday’s deaths of all but one member of the specially trained, 20-man Granite Mountain Hotshots were still sketchy as an investigation was launched into how the disaster unfolded. Information about the survivor, including his identity and how he escaped death, was not immediately released.
The remains of his co-workers were borne away on Monday in a cortege of 19 white coroner’s vans to Phoenix for autopsies. The solemn procession from the team’s home base in the town of Prescott was received by a police and firefighter honor guard.
A memorial service on Monday drew at least 1,800 people to a sports hall at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University on the outskirts of Prescott. A lone piper played Amazing Grace, as friends and relatives wept and hugged.
Fire officials said the fallen men, most in their 20s were victims of a highly volatile mix of erratic, gale-force winds, low humidity, a sweltering heat wave and thick, drought-parched brush that had not burned in some 40 years.
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.”
Firefighters look for weather break in deadly Arizona wildfire
