Three federal firefighters were killed Saturday in Mesa County when a wind-driven wildfire trapped them. 

The three deaths accompanied an explosive night of fire activity as high winds buffeted small, lightning-started wildfires in Utah. By morning, a merging of fires spanned more than 28,000 acres southwest of Fruita and Grand Junction. Farther south, wind-whipped fires erupted near Dolores and Ouray. 

The burnover incident in western Colorado — part of the Snyder fire that started with the Knowles and Gore fires near the Colorado-Utah border — also injured two other firefighters. The firefighters with the Forest Service and U.S. Wildland Fire Service deployed their shelters as fire overtook their position. The two injured crew members were transported to a hospital for treatment. 

The Interior Department and Forest Service, which reported the burnover incident shortly after midnight on Saturday, did not identify the people who were killed. The statement said the agencies were “focused on supporting the firefighters’ family, friends and colleagues.”

At the Grand Junction airport Sunday morning, officials solemnly transferred the flag-draped bodies of the three firefighters from a helicopter to Mesa County Coroner’s Office trucks as winds gusted across the tarmac. About a dozen mourning firefighters who helped recover the bodies stood watch as they were moved. A long procession of fire and rescue trucks and law enforcement vehicles followed the bodies from the airport to the coroner’s office at Community Hospital.

Read more at ColoradoSun.com