Posted on 07/01/2013 5:07:06 PM PDT by montag813
Above: Juliann Ashcraft, wife of Granite Mountain Hotshot Andrew Ashcraft, is consoled by her father-in-law Tom Ashcraft while looking at a memorial outside of Prescott Fire Department Station No. 7 where the Granite Mountain Hotshots are based, Monday morning in Prescott. (Matt Hinshaw/The Daily Courier).--
Nineteen members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, based in Prescott, Ariz., were killed Sunday evening when a windblown wildfire overcame them north of Phoenix. It was the deadliest single day for U.S. firefighters since Sept. 11. Fourteen of the victims were in their 20s.
Family members of the 19 fallen Granite Mountain Hotshots gathered at the hotshots' station along 6th Street in Prescott late Monday morning to console each other and gather the belongings of their loved ones.
Below are the stories of some of those who died. NOTE: We are updating these bios hourly, as we receive information from friends and family of the fallen.
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Above: Delores Woyjeck holds a photo of her grandson. Kevin Woyjeck, a seasonal fire Explorer with Los Angeles County Fire Department. The photo was taken a few years ago when he was around 18 years-old, she said.
KEVIN WOYJECK: FOLLOWING IN HIS FATHER'S FOOTSTEPS
For 21-year-old Kevin Woyjeck, the fire station was always a second home. His father, Capt. Joe Woyjeck, is a nearly 30-year veteran of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Keith Mora, an inspector with that agency, said Kevin often accompanied his dad to the station and on ride-alongs, and always intended to follow in his footsteps.
"He wanted to become a firefighter like his dad and hopefully work hand-in-hand," Mora said Monday outside of the fire station in Seal Beach, Calif., where the Woyjeck family lives.
Mora remembered the younger Woyjeck as a "joy to be around," a man who always had a smile on his face. He had been trained as an EMT and worked as an Explorer, which is a mentorship training program to become a professional firefighter.
"He was a great kid. Unbelievable sense of humor, work ethic that was not parallel to many kids I've seen at that age. He wanted to work very hard."
As he spoke, Mora stood before an American flag that had been lowered to half-staff. His own fire badge was covered with a black elastic band, a show of respect and mourning for those lost in the line of duty.
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Above: Southern California natives Chris MacKenzie and Billy Warneke (Video details on these men and Kevin Woyjeck here)
CHRIS MACKENZIE: `JUST LIKE HIS DAD'
An avid snowboarder, 30-year-old Chris MacKenzie grew up in California's San Jacinto Valley, where he was a 2001 graduate of Hemet High School and a former member of the town's fire department. He joined the U.S. Forest Service in 2004, then transferred two years ago to the Prescott Fire Department, longtime friend Dav Fulford-Brown told The Riverside Press-Enterprise.
MacKenzie, like at least one other member of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, had followed his father into firefighting. Michael MacKenzie, a former Moreno Valley Fire Department captain, confirmed that he had been informed of his son's death.
"I can't talk about it," he said.
Fulford-Brown, also a former firefighter, feared for the worst as soon as he heard the news of the Arizona firefighters. "I said, `Oh my God, that's Chris' crew.' I started calling him and calling him and got no answer," he told The Press-Enterprise. MacKenzie, he said, "lived life to the fullest ... and was fighting fire just like his dad."
"He was finishing his credentials to get promoted and loved the people. It's an insane tragedy.
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BILLY WARNEKE: `DOING WHAT HE LOVED'
Billy Warneke, 25, and his wife, Roxanne, were expecting their first child in December, his grandmother, Nancy Warneke, told The Press-Enterprise newspaper in Riverside, Calif. Warneke grew up in Hemet, Calif., along with his fellow Granite Mountain hotshot, Chris MacKenzie. He was a four-year Marine Corps veteran who served a tour in Iraq and had joined the hotshot crew in April, buying a property in Prescott, near where his sister lived, the newspaper reported.
Nancy Warneke said she called Billy's sister after seeing the fire on the news.
"She said, `He's gone. They're all gone,"' Nancy Warneke told The Press-Enterprise. "Even though it's a tragedy for the whole family, he was doing what he loved to do. He loved nature and was helping preserve nature."
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SCOTT NORRIS: THE `IDEAL AMERICAN GENTELMAN'
Scott Norris, 28, was known around Prescott through his part-time job at Bucky O'Neill Guns.
"Here in Arizona the gun shops are a lot like barbershops. Sometimes you don't go in there to buy anything at all, you just go to talk," said resident William O'Hara. "I never heard a dirty word out of the guy. He was the kind of guy who if he dated your daughter, you'd be OK with it.
"He was just a model of a young, ideal American gentleman."
O'Hara's son Ryan, 19, said Norris' life and tragic death had inspired him to live a more meaningful life.
"He was a loving guy. He loved life. And I've been guilty of not looking as happy as I should, and letting things get to me, and Scott wasn't like that at all."
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ANDREW ASHCRAFT: AN ATHLETIC, GO-GETTER
Prescott High School physical education teacher and coach Lou Beneitone taught many of the Hotshots, and remembered 29-year-old Andrew Ashcraft as a fitness-oriented student.
"He had some athletic ability in him and he was a go-getter, too. You could pretty much see, from young freshman all the way, he was going to be physically active."
Beneitone said athletic prowess was a must for the Hotshots. "That's what it takes. You gotta be very physically fit, and you gotta like it, gotta like the hard work."
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Above: A procession carrying the bodies of the firefighters who died Sunday fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire heads down Grand Avenue toward the Maricopa County Medical Examiner's office on Monday. Nineteen firefighters have died in the fire that has ripped through half of the town and sent residents to Prescott for safety. (Mark Henle, AP)
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Above: 23-year old Anthony "Tony" Michael Rose was expecting his first child, a daughter, with his girlfriend on October 5th.
-- Anthony Rose, 23
Excerpt...click here for the full story.
So sad....
May God bless all of these fire fighters and welcome them into His Kingdom.
It truly is a sad day for Prescott, a beautiful small city which was Arizona’s territorial capital.
This is really sad. What makes it even sadder is that it will happen again. The Federal Government and it’s lackey agencies of the EPA, Interior, Agriculture, etc. will continue policies that make this guaranteed to happen again.
That was a hotshot crew, not smokejumpers. How do I know? I worked on the Prineville crew from 1982-1984, running chainsaw.
I would have been toast if not for a narrow little whitewater creek that I got in to wait for the firestorm to go on by. People would be amazed at how fast those things can move, trap and cook you.
The people that go in to fight those things are heroes.
You can't run and you can't hide if they happen to turn your direction and isolate you from escape.
I personally blame the environmentalists who refuse to allow controlled fires.
I agree with you. But I also lay much of the blame for this terrible loss on Barack Hussein Obama. Shortly after taking office he cancelled funding planned to modernize the Air Tanker fleet for putting out just this type of fire. Since that action on his part the fires seem to be much more frequent and are doing much more damage. How could anyone be so wrong on so many issues.
Very sad.
Thanks for posting the profiles. Real folks, not just numbers.
I stand corrected. Thank you for your service.
Look what I just found....
The Westboro Baptist Church (in Kansas) has tweeted their inexplicable joy at the tragic death of our 19 firefighters, praising the “God-consuming fire” and have we “repented yet?” in addition to promising to come to Prescott to picket the firefighter funerals.
Despite their vile comments, I am glad that I live in Prescott where we have come together as “One” in recognizing these fine men as our heroes.
http://prescottaz.com/main.asp?SectionID=36&SubSectionID=1118&ArticleID=120805
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