Why Did The Granite Mountain Hotshot Shelters Fail
On june 30 firefighters with the prescott fire department s interagency called the granite mountain hotshots were overrun and killed by the fire.
Why did the granite mountain hotshot shelters fail. The deployment of shelters occurred in a granite boulder field at the base of a very. Soon after that they headed downhill into a narrow box canyon that was smothered with dense 10 foot high chaparral. At 4 04 pm the granite mountain hotshots were still on the ridge above glen ilah. The deaths of the granite mountain hotshots marked the nation s biggest loss of firefighters in a wildfire in 80 years.
The yarnell hill fire was a wildfire near yarnell arizona ignited by dry lightning on june 28 2013 on june 30 it overran and killed 19 members of the granite mountain hotshots just one of the hotshots on the crew survived he was posted as a lookout on the fire and was not with the others when the fire overtook them. Like his fellow crew members he died after he was fully in his fire shelter. Dps records reveal that no one was quite sure where the granite mountain hotshots were located when they sent out frantic radio calls about 4 47 p m moments before they deployed their shelters. Fire shelters fail to protect elite firecrew from ariz.
The tragedy all but wiped out the 20 member granite mountain hotshots a unit based at prescott authorities said monday as the last of the bodies were retrieved from the mountain in the town of. Prescott fire chief dan fraijo later confirmed that all 19 were from the granite mountain hotshots. The tragedy sunday evening almost wiped out the 20 member granite mountain hotshots a unit based in the small. By jessica hartogs.
The largest remaining question about the yarnell hill fire that killed 19 members of the granite mountain hotshot crew in 2013 south of prescott arizona is why the crew left the safety of a. The firefighters had apparently deployed fire shelters against the burnover which reached over.