10 years after son died in Yarnell Hill Fire, family looks 'to give back some of the love'

Ten years after losing his son alongside 18 of his fellow Granite Mountain Hotshots during 2013's Yarnell Hill Fire, Joe Woyjeck and his family have largely shifted their focus to turning tragedy into something worthwhile.

“We try to make a positive out of a negative, and we count our blessings every day,” Joe said, himself a retired firefighter who spent decades with the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

In addition to joining the National Fallen Firefighter Foundation's peer support teams, and sharing their personal story of loss and grief to help others, they have created a non-profit in their son's memory.

Kevin Woyjeck was only 21 when he died on June 30, 2013, coming from a family where joining the fire service is practically in the DNA.

“He’s the ninth firefighter in our family, and he was following in my footsteps," Joe said. "But that’s a dangerous job, and we sometimes forget how dangerous the job really is.”

Despite his relative youth, he had already accumulated a wealth of firefighting experience, including completing the structure fire academy and spending a season on a wildland hand crew in South Dakota. His experience was bolstered by his time in the Los Angeles County Fire Department's Explorer program, which introduces youths to different aspects of the fire service.

After his death, his mother founded the Kevin Woyjeck Explorers for Life Association, an organization geared toward helping underserved youth benefit from local Explorer and first responder education programs.

“Kevin loved being a fire Explorer,” Joe said.

“When the crew was lost, my wife’s idea was to give back some of the love that the community and the fire service gave our family,” he said.

Over the past decade, the organization has donated about $500,000 to help young people become first responders across the country.

Through his position as the current president of the nonprofit, Joe has spoken at various Explorer graduations where he's been approached by parents worried about sending their kids off into a career that puts them in harm's way.

He obviously understands their concerns, he said, especially after losing his own son. But he thinks back to when he was first starting out, and nothing his parents, or anyone, said would have changed his mind.

"They have to do what they have to do,” he said. "Obviously we need more first responders, and it’s a proud and noble and dangerous profession."

For some people, like he and his son, this career feels like destiny.

“That’s my calling, and that was his calling, and what he wanted to do,” he said.

Aside from firefighting practically running in their blood, Kevin and his two siblings were steeped in the culture of the fire service from a young age, tagging along to the Los Angeles County Fire Museum as their dad worked to restore old fire engines.

Kevin's ultimate goal was to become a firefighter in Los Angeles County, where his father worked and where he spent so much time as a kid.

“The goal was for him to follow in my footsteps, which is awesome, but to make his own name. He wasn’t going to ride my coattail into the fire service,” he said.

Kevin planned to go to paramedic school next but first, he told his family he wanted to get one more year of experience as a hotshot before settling down in California.

A decade later: What's planned to honor fallen Granite Mountain Hotshots 10 years after Yarnell Hill Fire

Joe accompanied his son to Prescott for his agility test in the spring of 2013, the only dad in the bleachers, he said. And while he noticed Kevin was clearly younger than the majority of the guys testing with him, he points to a moment that he said exemplified his son’s true mentality, which he thinks helped him stand out.

“I’ll never forget, he left the pull-ups. He was exhausted because he just gave it his all, but he came back onto the track and started running with the guys who were struggling,” he said. “That was the personality he had."

Kevin joined the Granite Mountain Hotshots at the beginning of April 2013. At the same time, the department where he saw his career in the long run had begun testing for new positions. Joe, thinking about his son's future, proposed that he come and take the test just to get the ball rolling even though he might not actually be hired for another year.

“I can’t leave this team to go take a test for another department,” Kevin responded.

He had made a commitment to the 20-man crew and he couldn't leave them shorthanded during what was already a busy fire season that spring.

“I was looking at a giant picture, and he was looking at his team picture right then and there, that’s just how he was wired," Joe said. "Just a good kid.”

Kevin and 18 of his crewmates died less than three months after he made the decision to stay with his team.

The crew became trapped in a canyon during a flashover, their situation further complicated by problems with radio communications that caused challenges in determining the crew's exact location.

Joe and other hotshot families have long pushed for advancements in technology used in the field.

“I’m feeling that had they known where that crew was that day, that that crew may still be here,” Joe said. “Technology has come to the point where they’re able to track, in real time, firefighters in the structure world and the wildland world.”

And the same way his son had prioritized his team that spring, Joe emphasized that while he was speaking about his son, this story is and will always be about honoring and remembering the entire crew.

"We know that 19 families have 19 different stories, and we love all of the families and we want them all to heal and to find happiness," he said.

There are multiple memorials planned for the 10th anniversary on June 30 both in Prescott and beyond.

The Woyjecks have organized a memorial at the Los Angeles County Fire Museum, where Kevin spent so much time growing up and which helped foster his love for firefighting. Doors for the event will open at 3 p.m. on June 30, with services starting at 4 p.m. There will be an observance of 19 seconds of silence at 4:42 p.m. before the event switches gears to become a celebration of life at 5 p.m.

Reach the reporter at LLatch@gannett.com.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Granite Mountain Hotshot's family looks ahead 10 years after fatal fire