By Monday afternoon the Yarnell Hill Fire had grown to 8,400 acres and remained zero percent contained. As the State of Arizona joined the community grieving the loss of 19 firefighters who died Sunday fighting the fire, the deadly blaze continues to rage out of control.
State incident management officials were forced to call off air support from about 5 p.m. through Monday evening because of adverse weather conditions. Officials feared the monsoon activity could cause erratic winds that would make the fire unpredictable and difficult to fight.
The City of Prescott released the names of the 19 firefighters killed All 19 men who were killed by the raging fire were members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, an elite firefighting team employed at the Prescott Fire Department. Fourteen of the men were in their 20s.
The Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office will perform the autopsies since there are 10 medical examiners in Maricopa County who can perform autopsies, compared to one in Yavapai County. This is the largest loss of life related to an event such as this in Arizona and the largest in the country since 9-11-2001.
Yarnell is about 80 miles northwest of Phoenix, along a popular back way to Phoenix from Prescott.
400 firefighters were battling the fire at midday Monday, said Mary Rasmussen of the Southwest Area Incident Management Team. She said crews would focus on the eastern flank of the fire, where structures in Yarnell and Peeple’s Valley were threatened. She said efforts to determine why the firefighters died would continue.
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State officials estimated at least 50 structures were destroyed on Sunday, based on a Yarnell Fire Department flyover on Monday morning. It was unknown how many of those were homes, however 250 homes remained threatened by the flames.
Around 6 p.m. Monday, federal officials took command of the fire from Arizona forestry officials, meaning firefighting efforts will be directed by the U.S. Forest Service. Fortunately, this shift makes the fire a “Type 1” incident, which will bring in the most experienced teams and potentially more resources.
“The wind-whipped blaze has prompted officials to shut 25 miles of Arizona 89 between Congress and Kirkland, but residents of the hundreds of evacuated homes were still able to travel the estimated 30 miles to a shelter in Prescott.” According to Mike Reichling of the Arizona Forestry Service.
Reichling said, “Erratic winds, dry fuel and monsoon-like weather created conditions for the fire to spread quickly, the fire fueled by chaparral and grass, the blaze burned uphill on state land about 25 miles north of Wickenburg with 15- to 20-foot flames.
The low humidity, type of fuel, topography and northwest direction of the wind was feeding the and pushing it up the hill toward the communities, Reichling said.
Reichling added that “the winds changed direction on the hotshot crew. There had not been a fire in the Yarnell area in 40 years. Each of the dead firefighters apparently had deployed an emergency shelter, but not all the bodies were found inside them. “We have to get to the bottom of what went wrong with that particular team,”
Reichling, noted that all standard procedures were followed. A National Incident Management team will investigate the cause of the deaths.“They were caught up in a very bad situation,” he said.