Juliann Ashcraft, 23, told their local newspaper that she learned of the death of her husband, Andrew, while watching television news reports of the fire with their four children.

“They died heroes,” said Mrs Ashcraft, who was weeping as she spoke. “And we’ll miss them. We love them.”

Some 18 of those killed worked for the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a specialist team of 20 young wildfire-fighters based in nearby Prescott and sent to extreme emergencies.

 

The elite unit was founded in 2002 and required recruits to go through a gruelling boot-camp of “rigorous physical and mental training”. It was said to have had an average age of just 22.

A 19th member of the crew had been in a separate location and survived. There was no immediate information on his condition.

Both “teamwork” and “being nice” were also crucial attributes for new crew-members, the Hotshots said on their official website.

The men perished despite deploying fireproof emergency tents designed to protect them from advancing flames. Officials said an inquiry would be launched into why the tents failed.

“We are devastated. We just lost 19 of the finest people you will ever meet,” Dan Fraijo, the fire chief of Prescott, said.

“We’re going through a terrible crisis right now.”

The fire was started by a lightning strike last Friday, before exploiting dry, windy conditions to spread across 8,000 acres. It was still being battled by dozens of firefighters last night.

Yarnell and the surrounding Peeples Valley had been evacuated and it did not appear that any residents had been killed or seriously injured. But hundreds of houses were feared destroyed.

The tiny former gold-mining town, which sits almost 5,000 feet up a mountain, had not suffered a wildfire for the past 40 years, according to local records.

At least 250 firefighters were continuing to work to extinguish the fire as their colleagues were killed. Their number was expected to increase to 400.

Firefighting helicopters and a jet plane, dropping slurry on the burning areas, were also assisting yesterday with the effort to tackle the fire, which had broken into several separate blazes.

Before Monday the state of Arizona had lost a total of 21 firefighters to wildfires in the past 58 years. It was America’s most deadly wildfire for firefighters since a California blaze 80 years ago killed 29.

Jan Brewer, the governor of Arizona, said that the tragedy would “forever ring as one of our state’s darkest, most devastating days”.

“It will forever remind us of the constant peril our firefighters selflessly face protecting us,” said Ms Brewer.

“We can never repay these nineteen men and their families for their service and the ultimate sacrifice they made on our behalf. We can, however, offer them our deepest, eternal debt of gratitude.”

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