Superintendent of the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew He worked hard to help everyone willing to help themselves. He helped create the Arizona Wildfire Academy and taught basic firefighting, squad boss and leadership.Įric was kind and funny.

Eric took his job very seriously, turning boys into men. In 2003 Eric joined the Prescott Fire Department in the Wildland Division and helped create the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew, the first wildland crew of its kind. He was a cowboy with a love for his horse, “Shorty,” loved fishing and was an avid cyclist. Eric excelled at several jobs, but the one he loved most was wildland firefighting.Įric was a rock and ice climber and proposed to his wife on an ice-climbing trip to Ouray, Colorado. He graduated with honors from Ashe Central High and from Appalachian State with a degree as a biologist/naturalist. He tweets segment aired on September 30, 2013.A loving husband and son, Eric Shane Marsh was born and raised in the mountains of North Carolina. Kyle Dickman, former hotshot firefighter and associate editor at Outside magazine.He's also co-founder of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. Darrell Willis, wildland division chief for the fire department in Prescott, Arizona.Remembering The Granite Mountain Hotshots.Hotshots: What It’s Like To Be An Elite Firefighter.Revisiting The Fire That Killed 19 Hotshots.'And the city - to assume the responsibility - has got to determine, is it financially feasible, or is there another way to do this? Is there another way that we can defend our community other than have a hotshot crew?' Read More 'I would say it's really a split decision there,' Willis said. The city of Prescott is determining how best to protect itself from fires, and whether that means recruiting another hotshot crew. Unfortunately I think it comes down to one poor decision and they were caught.' 'So it's not as if this crew was inexperienced. 'One year these guys went out and they fought fires for 120 days,' Dickman added. 'Those 20 members had 98 years of wildland firefighting experience,' Darrell Willis, wildland division chief and a co-founder of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, told Here & Now. Others hotshot crews have greater access to resources, drawing from county, state and federal funds.Įven though the Granite Mountain Hotshots were trained in half the time of other crews, there was no question about their experience. The Granite Mountain Hotshots were the only city-funded crew. 'It seems to me and the investigators that Granite Mountain had seen this shift, but what they didn't see was the second wind shift and that's the wind shift that shoved the fire up into the basin in which they were killed.' 'There were two wind shifts, and originally it was understood that there was only one wind shift' Dickman told Here & Now. Unfortunately I think it comes down to one poor decision and they were caught. It's not as if this crew was inexperienced. The investigators found 'no indication of negligence, recklessness actions or violations of policy or protocol' on the part of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, based in Prescott, Ariz.Īlthough there are no definitive answers, Kyle Dickman, a former hotshot and an associate editor of Outside magazine who is writing a book about the Yarnell Fire, hypothesizes that the hotshots were caught off guard by a second wind shift, which has now been documented in the team's report. This weekend, the independent investigative team tasked with examining the Yarnell Hill fire and the last few hours of 19 hotshot firefighters' lives released its final report.

Some of the men in this photograph were among the 19 firefighters killed while battling an out-of-control wildfire near Yarnell, Ariz., on Sunday, June 30, 2013. Unidentified members of the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew from Prescott, Ariz., pose together in this undated photo provided by the City of Prescott.

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