Granite Mountain Hotshots

Honoring the Granite Mountain Hotshots

Memorial Park offers Hiking, Remembrance

The Granite Mountain Fatality Site is the area where the men made their final stand. The 19 crosses are in the location of each man, where they died together as a team, surrounded by 19 gabion baskets filled with rocks from that area to protect and honor that site.

Top: Granite Mountain Hotshots Memorial State Park entrance, off Highway 89. Middle right: The Granite Mountain Tribute Wall is next to the observation deck, where visitors can leave objects behind. Mostly filled with objects from other fire professionals that leave hats, patches, shirts, etc. from their respective firehouses. These are collected regularly, photographed and archived in permanent storage. Bottom left: Bronze statue near the entrance that is a mashup of all 20 Hotshots, this one is specifically a “Sawyer, “ the rank of the Hotshot team member that manages cutting away trees to create a fireline. Bottom right: Looking east from the observation deck down over the valley. The large (Helms) ranch house in the distance is where they were trying to get to, before the winds changed and sent the fire hurtling toward them. The circle in the center is the Fatality Site. You can see the town in the background where 120 homes burned in the fire. Photos courtesy of Arizona State Parks & Trails.

The Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshots were made up of 20 elite wildland firefighters who fought the Yarnell Hill Fire in June 2013.

On June 30, 2013 at 4:42 p.m., 19 of the Hotshots were overcome by smoke and perished in the fire that swept over them while they tried to avoid the approaching flames; they were tucked under their fire shelters in a canyon a mere 1/3 mile from safety of the Town of Yarnell. The fire burned more than 8,400 acres and 100 homes. The memorial park was built by order of Gov. Jan Brewer to be a place where families, friends and visitors could hike a 7-mile roundtrip mountain trail to honor, remember and thank the Hotshots for their ultimate sacrifice. Family members, fire professionals, local leaders and legislators met for a year to complete the plan and start the work.

Thanks to a generous donation from Arizona Public Service (APS) in 2016 to complete the work, the park opened Nov. 30, 2016.

Since, more than 110,000 people from throughout the world have visited the park to hike the trails, stopped to read the plaques for each of the 19, and remembered.

Circle of Gabions

Big Juniper Hotshots Memorial Photos by Martha Nall Court