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Nineteen wildland firefighters are dead in the Yarnell Hill Fire, a blaze that’s forced the evacuation of dozens of homes in two Prescott-area towns and left the state grieving.
The firefighters were caught in the fast-moving fire and forced to use their portable shelters, media reports say.
UPDATES:
–Bodies of 19 Firefighters Killed in Yarnell Hill Fire Taken to Phoenix
–Yarnell Hill Fire: Time-Lapse Video of Fire’s Spread
–How 19 Firefighters Died Battling the Yarnell Hill Fire
The epic scale of this tragedy can’t be understated: It’s the eighth-worst fire in U.S. history.
The Yarnell Hill disaster is even worse than the Great Fires of 1947 in Maine, a list of deadliest fires from our sister paper, the Denver Westword, shows.
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The fire apparently ties a 1956 oil refinery fire in Texas for the fifth-worst day in firefighting history. Not since the 9/11 attacks have so many firefighters lost their lives in a single day.
Yarnell, a quaint little mountain town about 30 miles north of Wickenburg off State Route 89, and Peeples Valley are being evacuated, fire information on the web shows.
We’ll be hearing a lot more about this in the days — and years — to come.
