Arizona to pay firefighter families $670,000 over wildfire deaths

[June 30, 2015]  By David Schwartz
 
 PHOENIX (Reuters) - Arizona will pay a total of $670,000 to the families of the 19 elite firefighters killed in the country's deadliest wildfire in 80 years and has agreed to reform the way it fights wildfires, state officials said.

Under two agreements, the state will pay $50,000 to each of a dozen families to settle their wrongful death lawsuit filed last year stemming from the deaths of the 19 men.

Another $10,000 will be paid to each family of the other seven firefighters who died in the Yarnell Hill Fire in June 2013.

There is no admission of blame in the settlement documents.

Officials said chief among the settlement terms is an agreement that the state will work to change its firefighting procedures and technologies to improve the safety of crews on the front lines.

Pat McGroder, a lawyer who represented the families in the wrongful death case, said the issue was never about money.

“Our clients wanted transparency and change to ensure that what happened to their loved ones that day would never happen again,” McGroder told a news conference.

The settlements come on the eve of the second anniversary of the deaths of the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots who died in the lightning-caused, wind-whipped blaze that roared across drought-parched land northeast of Phoenix in June 2013, destroying scores of homes and charring about 8,400 acres.

The hotshot crew died two days after the fire’s start, trapped by a wall of flames as they moved in a box canyon and were overcome by the fast-moving blaze. Hotshot Brendan McDonough was the lone survivor.

Two investigative reports were issued after the fire, one of which concluded that state forestry officials placed more importance on saving structures and land than firefighter safety.

State Forester Jeff Whitney said the settlements will enable fire managers to apply “lessons learned and lessons to be learned from the tragic circumstances … for the betterment of firefighter and public safety.”

(Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

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