Firefighters

[Lamplighter]

I did not find a recent thread devoted to firefighters,
but the deaths in current wildfires in Arizona deserve mention.

Nineteen "hot shots" dead.... all but one from this team.
This team was known as the Granite Mountain Hot Shots out of Prescott, AZ
The wildfire was north of Phoenix, blowing down on the small town of Yarnell.

I've said to my wife before, the only thing I could see driving these young people
might be a high level of testosterone or some other special hormone.
For the most part, they are individually only known locally.
But here is an news article that tells a little about a few of these young men,
and the names and ages of the others.



Back in 1994, there was the Storm King fire in Colorado when there were 14 firefighters killed.
Here in Oregon, we heard a lot about the "Prineville Hot Shots" that lost 9 young people.

Prineville, OR is a very small town that is now the center of "ranching".
Back it the day, it was the center of the "pine furniture", but that timber industry has faded.
On the corner of a down-town street is an old classic stone bank building.
The interior still has the brass tellers windows and the Manager's office.
But this old bank has been given over to a museum to commorate
the "wild west" days of ranching and lumbering and founding families.

Upstairs on the messanine is a memorial to the Prineville Hot Shots.
These were not homeless, wandering boys just looking for summer work.
They were the sons and daughters of families that have been
fighting forest fires since Oregon's earliest days.
The memorial portrays their service as their duty and gift to the community.
.
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