Yarnell Hill Fire 19 Memorial

I thought that I did a Blog post on this story along time ago, I guess I was wrong!

So, here goes. Back in 2014 I made the journey across the country. Two different plane some 7 hours, making a stop in Florida before ending up at my destination Colorado Spring, Colorado the home to the International Association of Fire Fighters or IAFF Fallen Fire Fighter memorial. I made this trip to visit the wall and my father's name. Little did I know that this journey had me on a collision course with an amazing Woman and her friend, who where brought to the memorial on a journey of their own to honor the Yarnell 19.

With my biological clock set to Boston time I found myself typically wide awake a couple hours before the sun came up or anyone else being awake, unless if they where from Bean Town too. So, what do you do? Well for me it was go for a walk, looking for the magical cup of Joe! But, on my search I came across these amazing memorial set up in the hallway of the Host Hotel. There was two long tables stretched down the hallway. On top of these table where 19 photos carefully placed. At first glance it was a nice memorial; but; if you did not hear the story behind them, you might just pass by with just that thought, "It is a nice memorial!" And for me just that exact thing happened because I need my cup of Joe.

But for me part of this trip was to memorialize it with photos, so as strange as it may sound I grabbed my camera and went to take photos of photos. And this is when the photos became more then nice photos, this is when they gained sole and meaning all because I crossed paths with; an amazing woman; Rhonda Synder.

I forget exactly how our first interaction went; but; if I had to guess it had to go something like this, she saw me taking photos and she approached me to explain the photos; like she would probably do 100 time during this week; "These are photos which I took of the Yarnell 19, do you know about them?!" And of course I did not so she went on naming each one of the 19, "This is a memorial to Andrew Ashcraft, Robert Caldwell, Travis Carter, Dustin Deford, Christopher MacKenzie, Eric Marsh, Grant McKee, Sean Misner, Scott Norris, Wade Parker, John Percin, Anthony Rose, Jesse Steed, Joe Thurston, Travis Turbyfill, William Warneke, Clayton Whitted, Kevin Woyjeck, Garret Zuppiger!"

But she didn't just name them she would walk you around point to each photo and tell you that "This photo is for...!" And how and why it represented each name. Following the deadly fire a memorial wall was set up on a chain link fence where tributes where brought and left memorializing each member of the crew, which she photographed.

Woo, what a moving thing to see how she took photos representing each member. So moving but that would not be the end of the story about the photos. Each photograph was framed out in a nice simple dark black frame, which would have meaning too! Come to find out Rhonda traveled to the scene of the deadly fire and collected ash wood from the fire, mill it and frame each photo. So moving!

This interaction at the display low and behold would turn into a friendship and a week of fun together. We would travel to the memorial wall together. Downtown sight seeing. Hitting the Pipes & Drums block party, which I will come back to.

But before I get to what I would describe as a spin chilling moment. That it was because of this friendship that I was blessed to meet family members of the crew and a member and the lone survivor who has been blessed with his life; but; nightmare of the fact he survived; because he was not on scene; while his crewed burned alive.

Now back to a moment which some would describe as pure coincidence. Some would say it is spin chilling. Which I describe as the 19 saying to Rhonda thanks and we are here and at peace. While out for dinner we ended up in a packed full restaurant where we where told the wait would be about a half hour or so, ok no big deal! We got our table pager and sat outside at some seat on the sidewalk. As we sat there Rhonda looked down at the pager and broke out in tears, "What is wrong?" She said look and pointed at the pager, I will let the picture below tell the rest of the story.