Crime & Safety

VIDEO: Bagpipes for Local Hotshot Chris MacKenzie, One of 19 Killed in Arizona

Redlands-Loma Linda Patch video by Guy McCarthy.

Hundreds of people came to a public memorial service Saturday at Ramona Bowl for former Mill Creek hotshot, Tahquitz crewman and Hemet High School grad Chris MacKenzie, who was killed June 30  with 18 other firefighters in Arizona.

MacKenzie, who was 30 years old when he died June 30 in the Yarnell Hill Fire northwest of Phoenix, was remembered as an Eagle Scout, an avid outdoorsman who excelled in Bulldog football, and an expert snowboarder known on Big Bear slopes before he became a firefighter.

He worked in the Inland Empire area in the San Bernardino National Forest, earned his way onto a BLM helitack crew, the Mill Creek Hotshots based at Highway 38 and Bryant at the Mentone-Yucaipa border, and an engine crew at Pinyon Station 30 in Riverside County.

He was eventually invited to apply to Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshots in Prescott. Several people in Granite Mountain shirts attended his service July 13, including at least one crew survivor.

June 30 on the Yarnell Hill Fire is believed the deadliest incident for wildland firefighters since the Griffith Park Fire in 1933, when 29 were fatally injured.

Mackenzie is survived by his mother Laurie Goralski, father Micheal MacKenzie, brother Aaron MacKenzie, stepmother Janice MacKenzie, nephew Cobain, niece Vaida, stepsisters Janae Gier and Jill Allison, and a large family of uncles, aunts and cousins.

For more images from MacKenzie's service click the following link:

PHOTOS: Service for Former Mill Creek Hotshot Chris MacKenzie, One of 19 Killed in Arizona


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