By John Dougherty
The Granite Mountain Hotshots’ regularly scheduled day off was Sunday, June 30, the day the crew was dispatched to Yarnell and 19 of its 20 members were killed by a wildfire, newly released federal records show.
When Granite Mountain reported to Yarnell it was the 28th day that month the crew had been on duty, according to the records released by the state Forestry Division in response to an Arizona Public Records Law request filed by InvestigativeMEDIA. [Read more…]
The Los Angeles Times is noting that “an extensive and intriguing story in a Phoenix newspaper suggests that there might be more to the deaths of 19 elite firefighters this summer than just a freak storm that whipped the fire near Yarnell, Ariz., around them, cutting off their escape.”
The Times is referring to InvestigativeMEDIA’s feature on the Granite Mountain Hotshots that was also published in the Phoenix New Times.
“There have been angry outcries against anyone who even suggests the possibility of human error in the Yarnell fire,” writes Karin Klein. “Some of the hotshot team’s supporters have said that even if there were shortcomings on the part of the team, they should be kept confidential, imparted only to other firefighters to prevent further harm. That’s ridiculous. Such findings wouldn’t detract from the bravery these men showed in their chosen careers or the grueling work they undertook on the part of the public. They don’t have to be enshrined as perfect human beings to be admired.
The public, which also mourns them and has an interest in preventing future tragedies, has a right to know what happened.”
By John Dougherty
InvestigativeMEDIA
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| Illustration Kyle T. Webster |
“We are going to hallowed ground,” says Jim Paxon, spokesman for the Arizona Forestry Division, moments before leading reporters and TV crews to the site where 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots were killed in a June 30 wildfire.
“They are almost superhuman,” Paxon drawls to reporters gathered on the morning of July 23. “As we go up there, there’s a Granite Mountain Hotshots shirt on a cactus. We would ask that you touch the shirt … in reverence to the loss.”
Paxon chokes up and begins describing a fissure in a granite boulder forming a cross that flanks the site where the men were incinerated by a mammoth, manzanita-fueled blowtorch. Among wildland firefighters, the oily plant is well known for its explosive characteristics. The fire was so hot that it caused some of the granite boulders to crack. [Read more…]
Dave Turbyfill zooms in on a Google Earth map of a boulder-strewn box canyon just west of Yarnell, where his son and 18 other members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots died when they were overrun by a wall of flames on June 30.
It’s obvious he’s spent hours poring over maps as he tries to put himself in the boots of his son, Travis Turbyfill, in late-afternoon on the third day of the infamous Yarnell Hill Fire.
Not content to just look at images, Turbyfill has gone to the site where the men deployed their fire shelters as smoke enveloped them and 10-foot-high, drought-ravaged chaparral exploded into flames.
Dave Turbyfill’s son, Travis, was one of the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots killed in the Yarnell Hill Fire.
He’d hiked up through the boulder field, out of the box canyon to the ridgeline. He’d walked along the narrow two-track jeep trail that hugs the ridge. He’d wondered what the Granite Mountain Hotshot crew saw about 4 p.m. on June 30 and why it decided to leave relative safety and move down into a valley packed with unburned scrub.
On his hike, he’d looked north from his perch on the ridge, toward the community of Peeples Valley, which earlier that day was about to be engulfed by fire but was spared only when the flames reversed direction as a powerful thunderstorm churning from the northeast unleashed winds of 40-plus miles per hour. [Read more…]
Arizona Deputy State Forester Jerry Payne has confirmed that he made the comments attributed to him by InvestigativeMEDIA in a July 30 article in which Payne was quoted as saying the leader of the Granite Mountain Hotshot squads made mistakes in the moments leading up to his death and the deaths of 18 members of his crew.
Carrie Dennett, a forestry division spokeswoman, is quoted by Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services as saying Payne “did admit making the comments.”
In the story posted Wednesday, Fischer reports, “The dispute he (Payne) has with the (InvestigativeMEDIA) report, Dennett said, is that it did not make clear that this was just his personal opinion and not part of any official finding or statement.”
Capitol Media Services also reported that Gov. Jan Brewer said Wednesday that Payne expressed his own opinion about the deaths during the Yarnell Hill Fire. But she said any such conclusions were premature, as the investigation is ongoing. [Read more…]
