An elite team of 19 firemen were killed battling a rapidly spreading wildfire destroying scores of homes and forcing the evacuation of two towns in central Arizona, in one of deadliest incident of its kind in US for nearly 80 years.
All the firefighters died while racing to contain the contain the Yarnell Hill wildfire, north of Phoenix, after the blaze destroyed the town yesterday, forcing people to flee. US President Barack Obama hailed the firefighters killed as “heroes”. “They were heroes — highly-skilled professionals who, like so many across our country do every day, selflessly put themselves in harm’s way to protect the lives and property of fellow citizens they would never meet,” Obama said in a statement on Monday.