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Remembering The Granite Mountain Hotshots

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Portrait of the Granite Mountain Hotshots from the Prescott, Ariz. city web site.
Portrait of the Granite Mountain Hotshots from the Prescott, Ariz. city web site.

Nineteen members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots — the elite crew of firefighters based in Prescott, Ariz. — died while battling a wildfire in Yarnell Hills, Arizona.

Six members of the elite group of firefighters who were killed, regularly worked out together at the Captain Crossfit Gym, which is just down the street from the hotshot crew's headquarters.

Tony Burris, a trainer at the gym, was friendly with the six men. He remembers the six firefighters who came to the gym for their physical ability and for their big hearts.

Burris remembered Travis Turbyfill in particular.

“[He was] this big guy, ex-Marine, carrying his two little daughters in both his arms, and you could just see the love shining from them, all of them,” Burris recalled.

Burris considers all the firefighters the “town soldiers.”

“They’re on the front line, and they’re there to protect us, and they just got caught.”

Guest:

  • Tony Burris, trainer at the Captain Crossfit in Prescott, Ariz.

This segment aired on July 2, 2013.

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