MISSOULA – It will be a low-key event meant just for family and friends to honor the 14 firefighters killed in Colorado, 25 years ago Saturday on Storm King Mountain near Glenwood Springs, Colorado.
One of the firefighters killed that day was Hamilton’s Don Mackey.
“There will be time to find the answers. Today we must join in sympathy and solidarity with the family of Don Mackey and all the victims of this fire,” Montana US Senator May Baucus said on the Senate floor in July of 1994.
When the South Canyon Fire blew up on July 6, 1994, the crew was trapped by fire and couldn’t outrun it. Still,
Don was able to get eight smokejumpers to a safe zone, rushing back into the fire several times to lead them out.
But while he saved lives that day, he paid the ultimate price — along with 13 of his fellow crew members. His
courage even inspired a TV movie called Smoke Jumpers.
Don started firefighting in 1984 on the Bitterroot National Forest and became a hotshot and then a Missoula
smokejumper. He left behind a wife and two children.
On a website dedicated to those lost, it’s said that Don died doing what he did best — fighting fires. His loyalty and concern for his fellow firefighters will always be remembered.
These were the first smokejumpers lost since the Mann Gulch Fire near Helena in 1949 — 70 years ago this
summer.
Officials plan to drop 14 purple streamers from airplanes honoring the victims on Saturday. The US Forest
Service also plans a short news conference at the site.
