{"id":1312156,"date":"2019-07-06T21:32:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-07T03:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/survivors-of-the-storm-king-fire-tragedy-havent-stopped-fighting\/"},"modified":"2019-07-08T07:51:35","modified_gmt":"2019-07-08T13:51:35","slug":"survivors-of-the-storm-king-fire-tragedy-havent-stopped-fighting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/survivors-of-the-storm-king-fire-tragedy-havent-stopped-fighting\/","title":{"rendered":"Survivors of the Storm King fire tragedy haven\u2019t stopped fighting"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Prineville hotshot Alex Robertson speaks with members of the press at the Storm King Fire press conference on Saturday, July 6 marking the 25 years since the lives of 14 wildland firefighters were lost on Storm King Mountain which loom in the background.<\/strong>
Chelsea Self \/ Post Independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The 25th anniversary of the Storm King fire was far more subdued than the public memorial held five years ago. This year, it was all about those who lost family and loved ones on July 6, 1994.<\/p>\n

For Jim Roth, the fire shaped the rest of his life. Jim lost his younger brother, Roger Roth, one of the McCall Smokejumpers who perished in the Storm King fire.<\/p>\n

Roth used his training as an aerospace engineering to develop better protective equipment for firefighters after his brother died.<\/p>\n

He designed a new kind of fire shelter, which didn\u2019t end up being used, and later designed liners for fire trucks.<\/p>\n

Roth tries to visit the spot where his brother died every year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI reflect on my life, on why I\u2019m still here, and what work I need to do to make firefighters safer,\u201d Roth said. \u201cI come off the mountain more energized because I\u2019ve had a chance to be close to my brother.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 100 family members and friends of the men and women who died, as well as surviving firefighters, gathered in Glenwood Springs for a picnic and a hike up the Storm King Memorial Trail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis event 25 years ago shaped what we do in wildland fire, and it changed it forever,\u201d said Rob Burger, Fire Management Officer, for the Upper Colorado River Interagency and Aviation Management Unit. \u201cThe promise we made 25 years ago is to never forget those that we lost. We\u2019re going to continue to honor their memory; we\u2019re going to support the survivors and their families,\u201d Burger added.<\/p>\n

One of the survivors of the fire, Alex Robertson, kept fighting wildfires after nine of his fellow Prineville Hotshots perished in 1994. He worked as a hotshot for more than a decade, and now is the fire and aviation staff officer for an interagency fire office in Oregon.<\/p>\n

Over the past 25 years, he has brought more than 1,000 firefighters to Storm King Memorial Trail to pass along the lessons of the fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge we have is that we cannot just not fight fire, we can\u2019t not put people in harm\u2019s way,\u201d Robertson said. \u201cIf we didn\u2019t fight fires, they would burn up towns, and people would lose lives. The challenge is deciding when it\u2019s necessary to put firefighters in danger, and how.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat balance of when do we put people in harm\u2019s way, that\u2019s the big question. Our fire managers make those decisions every day,\u201d Robertson added.<\/p>\n

Firefighters came from across the country to fight the Storm King Fire, and 14 never returned home.<\/p>\n

The families want to know that their loved ones are remembered, Roth said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn getting to know all these families for all these years, the one solid thing everyone believes in is, always remember what happened here,\u201d Roth said. \u201cUse it as an example to teach our young firefighters so it doesn\u2019t happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The town of New Castle passed a resolution honoring the men and women who gave their lives in the fire, and Roth also appreciated New Castle\u2019s Hot Shot Park, named in honor of the firefighters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best way to honor them is to remember them, and remember what people did here 25 years ago today,\u201d Roth said.<\/p>\n

tphippen@postindependent.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prineville hotshot Alex Robertson speaks with members of the press at the Storm King Fire press conference on Saturday, July 6 marking the 25 years since the lives of 14 wildland firefighters were lost on Storm King Mountain which loom in the background.Chelsea Self \/ Post Independent The 25th anniversary of the Storm King fire […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1312156","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 06:25:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1312183,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312156\/revisions\/1312183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}