They were part of an elite squad confronting wildfires on the front line, setting up barriers to stop the spreading destruction. But in their unpredictable world, it doesn't take much to turn a situation deadly.
In this case, a wind
shift and other factors caused a central Arizona fire, which now spans
almost 9,000 acres, to become erratic, said Mike Reichling, Arizona
State Forestry Division spokesman.
The inferno proved too much, even for the shelters the 19 firefighters carried as a last-ditch survival tool.
"The fuels were very dry,
the relative humidity was low, the wind was coming out of the south. It
turned around on us because of monsoon action," Reichling told CNN
affiliate KNXV. "That's what caused the deaths.
The firefighters were killed Sunday while fighting the Yarnell Hill fire, northwest of Phoenix.
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