Two of the three firefighters who died in the Snyder Fire near Grand Junction on Saturday were stationed in Rifle.
Emily Barker, 32, and Sydney Watson, 27, both worked for the Rifle Helitack team, a specialized crew that can help fight fires in remote areas that engines can’t reach.
They start by assessing from above in helicopters, then drop supplies or join on-the-ground suppression efforts.
“It's one of the tools that we use frequently, especially on initial attacks,” said US Wildland Fire Service spokesperson Kevin Sweeney. “We want to keep fires small, especially this year with conditions being so bad.”
The exact circumstances that led to their deaths are under investigation, but Sweeney said burnover — when a fire changes rapidly, trapping firefighters — was likely a factor.
Two others were injured and are now receiving medical care, according to a press release from the U.S. Forest Service.
In the days since the incident, people close to the firefighters have shared details about the deceased’s lives.
Barker spent winters working at Vail Mountain, where she became the first woman to win Colorado’s “Snowmaker of the Year” award, which honors the best snowmaking professional in the state. She played on a women’s hockey team and loved snowmobiling and dirt-biking, according to Denver7.
Sweeney said Watson was new to the Rifle crew. She wanted to become a burn boss — someone who manages prescribed burns, according to Women in Fire Training Exchange. They also said Watson was a natural leader and wanted to teach others about a career in wildland firefighting. She attended one of the organization’s training events in North Carolina in 2023.
Barker and Watson were part of the roughly 10% of wildland firefighters who are women.
Lisa Karczewski, Barker’s sister and a teacher in Michigan where they grew up, told the New York Times that she would often use her sister as a source of inspiration for her young students.
“Look at her, she’s a female wildland [fire]fighter,” she would tell them. “You can do anything.”
Watson wrote in her application for the Women in Fire Training Exchange program that she wanted to learn from other women, staff said.
Sweeney said the firefighters’ deaths have had a deep impact on the wildland firefighting community and beyond.
“The wildland firefighting community is a family, and we take these losses pretty hard,” he said. “It's people that you've known for a long time or have gone through training with.”
Grand Junction hosted a procession honoring the fallen firefighters on Monday. More than 200 people lined the sidewalk on Riverside Parkway to show their support.
As of Wednesday night, the Snyder Fire had grown to over 30,000 acres across the Colorado-Utah border.
Extreme fires like this have become an unfortunate reality this season, Sweeney said.
This winter’s historically low snowpack led to drier conditions ripe for wildfires.
It’s been especially hot and windy on the Western Slope too, making fires less predictable.
“That awareness that fires are going to move fast and they're going to move in ways that maybe aren't customary to what they've seen before is on the minds of most firefighters, if not all firefighters, this fire season,” Sweeney said.
But he said that once the incident investigation is complete, the findings could help prevent future deaths.
“It helps improve training and policy, equipment [and] other operational practices across the entire wildland fire community,” he said.
