19 Firefighters Dead in Arizona

Sadly confirmed.  One of worst such disasters in our history. And entire town of Yarnell seems to be burning down. now.  This report also has 19 dead, mainly members of Granite Mountain Hotshot team, average age 22, and more in hospital.  They had deployed their little tent-like fire "shelters" to no avail.  (Here's what it looked like when they deployed the shelters in a training exercise.)  Half of town gone.

Reminded of one of the great books of our time, Norman Maclean's 1992 Young Men and Fire. Read about it here, although that write-up doesn't capture the moving human drama captured by the book.  (Read excerpt here.) Maclean's son wrote a book about another U.S. fire that took 14 lives.   And great song based on Young Men and Fire below.