The very tragic deaths of most of the Granite Mountain Hotshot crew on the Yarnell Fire Sunday may cause us to think about other similar incidents. It is not uncommon for firefighters to die on fires, in fact the National Interagency Fire Center has records of 1,030 fatalities of various causes on wildland fires, with 424 caused by burnovers, becoming entrapped in a fire.
But as many as 19 being killed at one time has not happened since October 3, 1933, when 25 firefighters were entrapped and killed while fighting a fire in Griffith Park in Los Angeles. The only other incident with more than 19 wildland firefighter fatalities occurred on the “Big Blowup Fires” of August 21, 1910 when 72 firefighters died in Idaho.
According to records maintained by the National Interagency Fire Center, 21 firefighters have been killed on wildland fires in Arizona going back to 1955. The highest number on one fire up until today was on the Dude Fire, which coincidentally we wrote about earlier today.
More information: a partial list, by date of the year, of some of the more famous, or infamous, multiple fatality wildland fires around the world over the last 150 years.
