GLENWOOD SPRINGS—Two decades ago, 14 men and women lost their lives in a devastating fire near Glenwood Springs. The South Canyon Fire burned across Storm King Mountain, taking many by surprise with its speed and intensity. On Sunday, families of those firefighters lost, as well as survivors and the community gathered to remember those who gave their lives that day.
Twenty years ago, Michelle Ryerson confronted the fire on Storm King Mountain.
"There wasn't anything that stood out, as being a dangerous situation, until the wind picked up," said Ryerson, who was a firefighter then and is now the National Safety Program Manager for the Bureau of Land Management.
What happened next is nothing short of tragic: 14 men and women, firefighters battling the blaze, lost their lives.
"[It was] a truly, truly sad moment and just very hard to grasp, the extent of the tragedy," she said.
Two decades later, some things change, but in other ways, never really do.
"It's a situation where it's always sad. You never get used to it," said Jim Roth, who lost his brother Roger that day. Roger Roth was a smoke jumper with the U.S. Forest Service.
Roth traveled from Thousand Oaks, California, and joined his parents on Sunday, to go to the top of the mountain, where a memorial honors the 14 firefighters who died there.
"What we did was we celebrated his life on the side of the mountain today," Roth said. "Heard a lot of great stories and kept his memory alive."
Down the mountain, in the town of Glenwood Springs, they did the same-- remembering those lost and giving thanks for those who survived. Among the issues 20 years ago: poor communication and a fire service, which admits, it had a lot to learn in the aftermath.
"The top lesson we learned was that we didn't have good standards for people to follow," said Ron Dunton, Assistant Director of Fire and Aviation, BLM.
Some changes have taken hold since 1994, including better training, improved communication and one very important change.
"We've also stressed that every firefighter has a right to say no to an assignment they think is unsafe," Dunton said.
That's something that was unheard of 20 years ago, but fire service tragedies still happen, including the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona in June of last year, which killed 19 firefighters.
"Statistically, we're doing a much better job than we were 20 years ago," Dunton said. "Yarnell was an absolute tragedy, but it's not something that happens every year."
Statistics are one thing, but for those who gathered in the shadow of Storm King Mountain on Sunday, it was all about the individuals-- the 14 men and women, who have not been forgotten with the passage of time.
(KUSA-TV © 2014 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)
