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Yarnell Hill Memorial Proposals To Be Heard
Laurel Morales
An American flag now stands where the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots died June 30. Firefighters now consider the ridge hallowed ground.
A group of Yarnell and Prescott community leaders is deciding this week what to do with the site where 19 firefighters died while battling the Yarnell Hill Fire.
Today, an American flag is all that marks the rocky box canyon where 19 men deployed their fire shelters seconds before the fire overtook them. Their families and fellow firefighters, including former Granite Mountain Hotshot Pat McCarty, have returned to the hallowed ground to honor them and to try to understand what happened on June 30, 2013.
“Everybody has their own reaction when they go there,” said McCarty, now a Prescott firefighter. “Some people are touched where they’re completely silent. Other people break down and cry.”
But McCarty said it’s important to have a memorial at the site. He said his brothers would want a simple wall, maybe 19 crosses, nothing too grand.
But that may not be so simple to carry out. Some residents who live close to the site have become weary of all the visitors. The site is landlocked by private property. So Prescott Fire division chief Daryl Willis has proposed an easement on the large ranch land where they could build an interpretive trail so people willing to hike the three miles could learn some of the facts gleaned from the investigations.
“And I’m really talking about what’s occurred in the past like at Mann Gulch in Montana or in Glenwood Springs where the Storm King Fire was,” Willis said.
Fire crews from around the country often visit sites where deadly fires have occurred to honor the fallen and try to learn how to prevent a tragedy like that from happening again.
Arizona lawmakers set aside $500,000 for the Yarnell Hill Fire memorial last spring.
Another group of Prescott citizens would like to see a memorial in Prescott 30 miles away, where most of the Granite Mountain Hotshot crew were from.
