On the Burning Edge (31 page)

As the Granite Mountain Hotshots deployed their shelters, the fire slammed into Yarnell, burning more than a hundred homes. When the flames hit, many of the town’s 650 residents had not yet evacuated. Shot by the Air Attack. C
OURTESY OF THE
N
ATIONAL
I
NTERAGENCY
F
IRE
C
ENTER

Note the fire’s rapid increase in size after the second wind shift hits around 16:30 (4:30
P.M.
). A
RIZONA
S
TATE
F
ORESTRY

Investigators at the site where the hotshots deployed their fire shelters. It was roughly the size of a tennis court. The Helms’ place, the hotshots’ intended safety zone, is the unburned space on the center-right side of the picture. The burned debris beside the rock pile in the foreground is the hotshots’ equipment. W
ILLIAM
F
OLEY

The blackened contents of one hotshot’s pack and rhino tool. Note that the wooden handles of both tools are completely burned and the pack’s cloth is nearly gone. Experts estimate that flames taller than sixty feet swept through the basin, and temperatures exceeded two thousand degrees. W
ILLIAM
F
OLEY

The Helms’ place, Granite Mountain’s intended safety zone, after the flames passed through. Though the Yarnell Hill Fire’s intense heat cracked the buildings’ windows, the ranch survived because the homeowners had cleared their property of brush before the fire started. J
OHN
W
ACHTER

The view from the two-track road the hotshots used as an escape route to their safety zone, the large ranch in the background. Near the point where this photo was taken, the hotshots left the two-track road and moved cross-country toward the ranch, which was .6 miles away. Hampered by thick vegetation and steep terrain, Granite Mountain fell roughly a third of a mile short of the safety zone. J
OHN
W
ACHTER