Calgary Fire members will attend memorial for killed Arizona firefighters
Posted Jul 1, 2013 4:27 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It’s an unimaginable tragedy.
That’s how the president of the Calgary Firefighters Association is describing the loss of 19 firefighters in Prescott, Arizona who were killed battling a wildfire on Sunday.
Mark Faires said there’s no question members of Calgary Fire Department will be visiting the community for the memorial.
“We’ll be down supporting no differently than we know anybody would be supporting us, if and when a situation similar to that arises in Calgary, it’s a very wide support system that we all rely very much on,” Faires said.
“You wonder what the circumstances were that those firefighters faced when they forced to pull out their emergency shelters. A last ditch effort to try to survive. All their training kicks in and so you start to reflect on your own training and whether you’re as focused as you should be. Your mind just takes off in all directions,” he said.
The Arizona State Forestry Division says the wildfire about 140 kilometres northwest of Phoenix has burned 13 square miles with zero containment.
U.S. President Barack Obama is calling the deaths a heartbreaking reminder that emergency workers put their lives on the line every day.
