The Granite Mountain Hotshots were a group within the department whose mission was to fight wildfires. Founded in 2002 as a fuels mitigation crew, it transitioned to a handcrew in 2004, and ultimately to a hotshot crew in 2008. The crew had their own fire station, station 7, where equipment was housed including two 10-person crew carriers. On June 30, 2013, 19 members of the group were killed fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire. The fatalities were members of the group, which consisted of twenty members, of which only one survived. The firefighters had apparently deployed fire shelters, but not all of the bodies were found inside them. According to the National Fire Protection Association, it was the greatest loss of life for firefighters in a wildfire since 1933, the deadliest wildfire of any kind since 1991, and the greatest loss of firefighters in the United States since the September 11 attacks. Vice President Joe Biden attended the memorial and stated eloquently "all men are created equal and then some become firefighters

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