day as she can remember. the fire has burned through 6,000 acres since friday. good morning. reporter: good morning. as the sunrises we re expecting the winds to become more erratic. a condition that firefighters have been dealing with. low humidity, very high temperatures, fighting a fire in an area that hasn t burned in some 40 years. it was a deadly come bcombinati. the fire began moving on sunday changing direction, claiming the most firefighter lives since 9/11. trapping 19 firefighters with no way out. we re devastated. we just lost 19 of some of the finest people you ll ever meet. reporter: the firefighters were part of the prescott fire hot shot crew getting their name because they work in some of the
they are trying to protect so the loss is beyond words. our entire crew is lost. we lost 19 people in this wildfire. it s one of the worst wildfire disasters that has ever taken place. the weather very erat ec, namely the winds, what they re experience here in the low humidity high temperature weather are these monsoon type winds. you can t predict them, so what they re expecting, these firefighters were surprised. they were overcome. they did deploy these fire shelters, these small tents. they have to look at why it doesn t work with these firefighters, ashleigh. so many dwoes answer, such a tragedy for everybody there i
team that go there es in to the dangerous part of the fire. they dealt with erratic winds, monsoon type winds, low humidity, extreme heat in a place that hasn t burned in some 40 years. and they lost their battle. take a look at this team picture. 19 people, elite firefighters who put their lives in between the wall of flames rushing to innocent people s homes. these firefighters according to the fire department did tdeploy their fire shelters, a method of last resort. tough conditions certainly and tough time for that community. thanks for the report. other new, the coast guard search for a small plane that crashed in the water off ocean city, maryland has been suspended because of dangerous conditions there. the single begin aircraft crashed sunday afternoon about 500 yards from shore.aircraft cd sunday afternoon about 500 yards from shore.
it s the last ditch effort in order to try to survive a fire. it s the only thing left that a firefighter will have in this condition in order to try to survive this. and it does not happen frequently because of the planning, but again, the winds are so unpredictable. and when you re in those situations and you re right on the fire line like these heros were, it just makes it very difficult to face the fire and expect to survive without the shelters. thanks so much for taking the time this morning. they are right there on the front lines. yeah, we ve been with the hot shot. they re like special forces. but they have everything working against them. one of the big factor that s keeping the wildfires burning is
which is basically a retardant. it separates us as firefighters from the fire itself. that is the last ditch effort that firefighters use in order to survive a fire should they be overrun by the fire. and what does that tell you? it means something unexpected must have happened. they re point to go probably the possibility of winds really turning in dramatic fashion. is that what you would expect to happen in the situation? yes, that s most likely what had occurred is that the wind did change direction and the fire turned on them as they were preparing to continue to fight the fire. and it was unexpected and so they deployed the shelters in order to survive the fire. when they get into a circumstance that they are forced to deploy the shelters, what are the chances that they were going to make it out? are these shelters deployed on a regular basis?